


A World On Fire

by Scarecrow243



Series: A World On Fire [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout - Fandom, Fallout 4, Nuka-World - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Deceit, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Explicit Sexual Language, F/M, Falling In Love, Fallout 4 Spoilers, Fluff, Graphic Violence, Lies, Main quest spoilers, Minutemen, Nuka-World, Raiders, Romance, Slow Build, nuka-world spoilers, strong female
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-03 14:39:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 153,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8717812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarecrow243/pseuds/Scarecrow243
Summary: After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I love the Fallout universe, and quite enjoy spending time there in-game as well as creating stories surrounding a world already created. The series, it's a bit long, and in the beginning, you'll find the story line to be very similar to the set-up of the Nuka-World DLC. I recommend reading the prologue for a bit of backstory on the main character, but if you find yourself oh-so familiar with the DLC and want something a bit different than the set-up, feel free to skip ahead a few chapters to "Blood, Money, Power" where things really start to shake up. You'll miss some backstory and character development, but we all know these characters pretty well. But if by chance you're like me and enjoy stories as a whole, I do encourage reading all chapters. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> *The good news is I have most of the chapters written already, so there won't be a long wait once you finish a chapter.*

           The World has changed. I expected as much after two-hundred years. And with society, government, life as we all knew it ending in such a violent way—atomic ware fare—I guess I should have suspected all means of stability to come crashing down, taking all forms of life thereafter down with it. But one thing I didn’t expect, as no one ever can, was that I might be alive to witness such an event.  
It was supposed to be a different life down in the vault. Nate and I, along with our infant son, would continue living our lives together—content with what’s been given to us. Content with the life Vault-tec promised us. No, it’s not the fairytale ending I wanted when I settled down and had a baby with the man I love, but I still have my baby and the man I love. At least that’s how it was supposed to be.  
            But little did we know, our vault was to become the host to some sort of sick experiment. We were given a vault suit and told to enter a “decontamination chamber.” Our separate little pods. Even though it happened two hundred years ago, I still remember that moment so well. Nate holding Shaun in his arms, and a part of me felt wrong about that. My baby screamed. He needed comfort. To be told everything was going to be okay. His little mind had no way to comprehend the world around him, but one thing he could comprehend—his mother’s touch. A loving, tender touch—one that Nate had yet to master as he hadn’t had the same time to bond with Shaun. Not with his military service getting in the way.  
            It was something I tried to get a handle on, Nate wanting to be Shaun’s source of comfort. But he didn’t know how to hold him. He didn’t know how to soothe him. A new father, one that was absent throughout most of the pregnancy and first few months of life, Nate struggled with being gentle type. Not because he wasn’t gentle, but when he held Shaun, he seemed more terrified than I’d ever seen him.  
            But still, he tried his best, and I found it difficult to deny him that. I loved it about him, even if he’d forget to cradle Shaun’s head from time to time. Little corrections needed to be made almost daily, but he started getting the hang of things. And then we found ourselves in a vault, and with my screaming baby in the arms of his father next to me, I fought the urge to steal him away. Because the look on Nate’s face—the unconditional love for his child, the desperation to soothe him. The broken man standing next to me, needing to cling on to some sort of happiness—it kept my mouth shut and my arms folded across my chest. I wish I would have just taken Shaun. The guilt of my decision being one that eats away from me every single day.  
            We entered our separate pods, Nate across from me with Shaun in his arms. The doors closed, but I could still see my boys through the glass. Nate cradled our son, kissed his head. And then he looked up at me and put his hand on the glass. I did the same. And then everything started to get really cold. I remember seeing my breath. I remember seeing bits of frost and fog form over the glass. My lungs started to burn. And then everything just…went black.  
            At the time, I didn’t know how much time passed when I awoke to the sound of an alarm. It took a few moments to gather myself—remember what happened to get me stuck inside of an icebox. Flashing lights outside of the pod distracted me, and my eyes landed on Nate in the pod across from me, Shaun crying in his arms. We were alive. We were awake. But two people approaching Nate’s pod held my attention—kept me from trying to find a way out. And again, at the time, I had no idea who they were.  
            Thinking back on it now, that bastard Kellogg and what he did to my husband…what he did to my baby…a knot still forms in my chest. And being the one to put a bullet in Kellogg’s head did nothing to soothe the pain. If anything, it only made things worse. Because the hatred you feel, it doesn’t end. And you no longer have a source to put that energy into. So it just kind of eats away at you. Forming you into a hollow shell.  
            You become reckless. And dare you even say that you long for death?


	2. The Worst Has Yet to Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett heads to Abernathy Farm to help clear a gang of raiders, but her Pip-boy starts playing a familiar tune.*

        With the Institute gone and the Brotherhood’s hub of operations now a steaming pile of metal at the Boston Airport, the only thing I feel the desire to do is crawl back into my cryogenic sleep for the next two-hundred years. And maybe this time I’ll be lucky enough for my pod to malfunction and kill me, just like it did with all the others.  
        I lament those who have died at my hand, at the hand of the Institute. I mourn the loss of a dear friend of mine. One of the only true friends I’ve ever had in my entire life—pre-war included. The very thought of him burns my eyes.  
        I miss Hancock every day.  
        While sitting in my quarters at Sanctuary Hills, I look out the window and sort of blur my eyes toward the forest behind my house. When I do this, for a moment, I can escape to my old life. I’m staring out the window while Nate is in the kitchen, making coffee and Shaun remains asleep in his crib. But no matter how much I blur my eyes, the forest remains barren and desolate. And in the heat of the summer, it’s near impossible to trick myself into thinking it’s only fall.  
        “Mom!”  
        I’m snapped from my daze by the sound of Shaun’s voice. Calling me something that continues to send chills down my spine. I look to the young child standing in the doorway. A darkness comes over me. A heaviness I feel every time I look at him because I know it’s not really him. A synth—replaced by the institute. And God help me, the only thing keeping me from putting a bullet in its head is that fact that he doesn’t know he’s a synth.  
        He looks at me and sees his mother. I look at him and see a monster. And the guilt from that alone destroys me. “Yes, Shaun?” I say with a quivered breath.  
        “I made this for you. With those vacuum tubes you found.”  
        He enters the room and hands me a makeshift gun. I study the thing and force a smile despite tears trickling down my face. “Wow,” I say. “This is…really great.”  
        How awful. A son making his mother a weapon. Something intended to kill. No, this is not my son. I look at the weapon in my hands and notice that I am shaking again. A small, undetectable thing to outsiders, but to me, I’ve noticed it’s been happening since the battle at the Castle. My hands shake ever so slightly while holding a gun. I’ve been reduced to using a shotgun as my main defense as it hardly takes any precision whatsoever.  
        A knock comes to the door. “Scarlett?” My eyes meet with Macready’s. He seems concerned. “Got a minute?”  
        I compose myself as best I can and clear my throat. “Uh…Shaun, why don’t you go help Codsworth outside? I think…I think he could use some company at the garden.”  
        “Okay,” Shaun says with a disheartened shrug and pushes past Macready in the doorway. I get the feeling he wants a bit more tenderness from me, but it’s near impossible to do. Macready enters the room completely when Shaun leaves us. He closes the door behind him and I toss the makeshift gun onto the dresser next to me.  
        “What’s up, Macready?” I ask while lowering myself into my chair.  
        “You feeling okay?” he asks.  
        I nod. Sure, I feel fine. Physically. But Macready knows me better than I’d like, and I know he’s going to pry in some way. Something I don’t care for. Sure, pre-war, whenever I felt sad or depressed, I’d talk to Nate. I’d talk to my therapist. Or maybe get shit faced drunk. But this world, the way it is now, it doesn’t afford such luxuries. And being mentally burdened, emotionally destroyed—it’s all a sign of weakness now.  
        Macready moves to the bed and sits on the edge to get closer to me. “They’re transporting Hancock today. Back to Goodneighbor.”  
        “Oh yeah?” I say, attempting to appear disinterested.  
        “I was wondering if you wanted to head out that way. To pay your respects before burying him.”  
        The one bit of solace I have from the loss of Hancock. He was an important man back in Goodneighbor. The mayor, and because of this, the town chooses to honor him with a tradition that for all intents and purposes has become pointless. But I can’t face Goodneighbor. Hancock left with me. And now he’s dead. I can’t help but feel I’m to blame.  
        I narrow my eyes in disturbance of Macready’s question. “No. I won’t be going.” He hangs his head, and the sneaking suspicion I’ve had since taking out the Prydwyn comes flying back to me. Macready wants to go home. “You can go, Macready. We’re done here. There’s…nothing more for you to do.”  
        “It hurts that you’d say something like that.”  
        “That wasn’t my intention. I just don’t want you to feel like you’re stuck here.”  
        “I like it here.”  
        “Liar,” I manage to chuckle, and Macready smirks at me.  
        “I was actually thinking about…having Duncan come out here. He and Shaun would get along great, and…if you’re hanging the hat now, I don’t see why I shouldn’t be doing the same thing.”  
        I laugh. “Domestication doesn’t really seem like your thing.”  
        He shrugs. “I miss my son.”  
        It’s like a dagger in the heart. “I know the feeling.”  
        I stand and move to the window again. But the pip-boy on my wrist clicks a bit. And then static with the faint sound of an upbeat tune. A tune I recognize, but for the life of me, I can’t recall where I’ve heard it before. And like all the other times this has happened since returning to Sanctuary Hills, the frequency is lost before I can make out a word.  
        “Your pip-boy still doing that?”  
        I narrow my eyes at the device and try to tune back into the frequency. Where have I heard that tune before? “Yeah…but it always stops before I can make out what it is.”  
        “Probably just interference from a nearby settlement.”  
        “I know that song,” I mutter, but someone entering the room catches my attention.  
        “General, another settlement needs your help.” Son of a bitch. Another settlement. Another group of people who have become complacent, relying on the powers of the Minutemen to fight their battles for them. And in the beginning, I was happy to oblige. But they’ve become lazy. And whiny. And now not a day passes that I don’t get bitter letters from settlements, saying they don’t have enough food or enough water.  
        Yeah, neither do I. It’s what happens in an apocalyptic wasteland.  
        I start to wonder how they all lived so long without me.  
        Macready chuckles as we’ve had many laughs at Preston’s expense. But this is no laughing matter. In fact, I’m growing quite weary of all this crap. I sigh and lean onto the dresser while folding my arms to show my displeasure. “Preston…the Minutemen are big enough now to where…you don’t necessarily have to send me to every settlement that has a radroach problem.”  
        “It’s at Abernathy Farm. A pack of raiders holed up nearby.”  
        I groan. “Fucking raiders.”  
        Macready stands. “Well, I guess we should head out then.”  
        “No, you stay here. Keep an eye on Shaun for me.”  
        Macready gives me a strange look, one I’ve grown accustomed to when I tell him to do something he doesn’t like. But he knows better than to question me in front of Preston. No, I’m not in charge of Macready. But we’ve reached a level of trust where if I ask him to do something, he will. Simply because he knows it’s what I want, and after what we’ve been through—the things we’ve done for each other, he’s happy to oblige.  
        Well, maybe not happy. But content enough to abide.  
        I stock up on supplies before heading out on foot to Abernathy Farm, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take my time. For the good of the Commonwealth, Preston’s voice rings in my mind.   Everything we do is for the good of the Commonwealth, and I start to wonder why I even care about the good of the Commonwealth when all it’s given me lately is heartache and disappointment.  
        When I arrive, Mr. Abernathy is up in arms, going on and on about a gang of nearby raiders bullying them into giving them provisions. I’m tempted to hand him my backup rifle and just remind him to take cover during the throws of battle.  
        “Do you know where they’re staying?”  
        “No,” he nips. His attitude making me all the more reluctant to do anything about his little raider problem. “Somewhere out East. Maybe check at that abandoned church.”  
        “Yeah, all right.” Dick.  
        Though Mr. Abernathy had the wrong location, he wasn’t far off. By the time the sun sets, I find a camp a few miles away, lit up like a god damn Christmas tree and easily detectable in the darkness of the night. As if the giant bonfire they built didn’t give them away, their loud and obnoxious behavior certainly seemed to have the power to alert anyone or anything in the area of their existence.  
        I hang back for a bit, studying their camp as best I can. I see five of them. No guard dogs or turrets in sight, and I doubt they’ve been there for very long. I contemplate how to go about this. If my hands were just a bit more steady, a rifle from where I’m standing would be the best way to pick them off one by one.  
        But it’s just not the case, and the trajectory of my shotgun just won’t reach them. So I wait patiently for them to go to sleep, and much to my pleasure, it seems they pass out drunk. With the exception of the lookout. A scrawny looking thing, probably the lowest ranking of all. Which will make him easy to take out.  
        I grab a nearby twig and snap it in half. Yeah, this guy was a raider. In the most predictable ways possible. Because as soon as he heard the twig, his attention came to my direction. And wouldn’t you know it—the dumbass started approaching the dark area in which I find myself.  
        “Who’s there?” he asks.  
        As if I might actually respond with. “Hey, it’s me.” I move from around the tree to another close by where I grab three other twigs and snap them in half. And of course, the raider follows the sound.  
        I hear him come up behind the tree where I’m hiding. His footsteps aren’t exactly quiet. No, I’ve never met a raider with stealth. A raider smart enough to play a hidden hand, wearing a poker face the entire time, tricking me into thinking I know exactly what they’re after when in fact I’m completely clueless.  
        The day I find a raider who’s smarter than me? Heh…that’ll be the day I surely die.  
        I remove the hunting knife from the sheath strapped to my thigh. The knife Hancock gave me only days before his death. And when the raider circles the tree and comes closer to me, only then do I reveal myself. Though I don’t give him enough time to really comprehend what’s happening. With one forceful thrust, the knife enters his neck, and his attempts at screaming for help turn quickly into the gurgling and choking of blood.  
        I grab hold of him and lower him to the ground as best I can, but the weight of him pulls us down quicker than I’d like. Still, his fellow raiders remain asleep at their bonfire.  
        I look down at the man before me, my hand still clenched tightly to the knife deep into his neck—the warmness of his blood drenching my hand. “Shush,” I whisper until he stops moving and his eyes become empty. The blood stops gushing onto my hand, and I know his heart is no longer forcing it out of him.  
        No, I don’t like killing this way. Staring into the eyes of the person in which I’m executing. But sometimes it’s necessary. Like now.  
        I pull the knife from his neck and wipe the remnants of blood onto my pants while glancing over my shoulder to his camp. The other raiders are still asleep, but the idea of executing them in the quiet manner in which I killed their friend doesn’t exactly sound appealing to me.  
        I search the dead raider for anything that might be useful. It’s only in this moment that I wish I would have brought Macready. At least then he could stand back and pick them all off one by one, something my shaking hands won’t allow me to do anymore. But attached to the raider’s belt, I find a grenade.  
        I pull the pin and roll the thing into their camp before ducking behind a tree and plugging my ears with my fingers. And even when I know the blast is coming, the sound of the explosion causes me to flinch and tense up my body. And I remain like that until everything falls silent once more.  
        I peek my head out from behind the tree. No movement from the camp, and no one appears to be in sleeping bags anymore. As I approach, I keep my eyes away from the areas in which I might find severed limbs and puddles of blood. The gore, I don’t like. Nor do I particularly enjoy destroying any sort of supplies that can be raided after taking out a camp, but the grenade seems to have done the job.  
        But when I get closer to the camp, my pip-boy clicks, and once again I hear static. I start messing with the thing, trying to tune in to the station as best I can when I hear that tune again.  The strange tune that sounds oh so familiar but I can’t seem to place. It’s in the forefront of my mind, right on the tip of my tongue.  
        I adjust the radio a bit more. And then I hear a voice come through the static. A very happy, almost child-like sounding voice. One to entice children, I’m sure. But then I hear it…the reason the tune sounds so familiar. Nuka-World.  
        I remember the park from before the war, but I’d never been. Shaun was too young. But I become curious. The same add that used to come on the radio—the same broadcast from over 200 years ago plays through my pip-boy, which could only mean one thing. Someone was at Nuka-World, and they sent out the broadcast for everyone to hear.  
        “How strange.”  
        I hear a groan come from behind me. A wounded raider inches toward me, holding the bloody stump where his arm used to be. Blood surrounds him. His face is pale and sweaty, and it kind of makes my stomach turn.  
        I wince and pull the pistol from my belt. “I’m sorry. This was supposed to be quick and painless.” I point my gun at his head and fire a shot, successfully putting him out of his misery. Poor guy.  
        But my attention goes back to my Pip-boy and the sound of Nuka-World’s add playing on repeat. In my experience, this sort of thing is a cry for help. Someone will broadcast something over and over again in order to gather the attention of anyone nearby. But in that same manner of thinking, someone might be sending it to attract anyone nearby in order to ambush them. Take everything they have before putting a bullet in their head.  
        This call for attention, I can’t ignore. And although I know it would behoove me to return to Sanctuary Hills in order to gather Macready or even inform Preston of the news of someone being at Nuka-World, I’m drawn to the other direction.  
        It would be wise to bring someone with me. It would be wise to bring a group of Minutemen to help scope out the area. See what tricks might be up someone’s sleeves. Or if it is in fact a call for help, it would be wise to have backup in case I alone can’t do anything to save the person on the other side.  
        But still, I walk in the direction of Nuka-World, occasionally glancing at the map on my Pip-boy to assure I go the right direction. And each step I take, I’m moving further and further away from Sanctuary Hills. Knowing all too well that if I take too long to return, they’ll assume me for dead.  
        Which might not be so bad.


	3. The Gauntlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?

           It takes me a few hours to reach the transit station, and with every passing minute, I become more anxious. Not because of what might lay before me. Because of what I might be leaving behind. Surely Macready is getting antsy, waiting for me to return. And a wave of guilt overcomes me. But when I arrive at the transit station, all those thoughts leave me completely. Sure, it’s a shit show of destruction—just like the rest of the commonwealth. But there’s something strangely uplifting about it all. Perhaps it’s the entrance to the station. Although filthy from nuclear fallout and rusted from over two-hundred years, the welcome center stands proud with the Nuka-World mascot still smiling as brightly as opening day.  
           But my eyes wander to the blood stained pavement. Fresh bodies surround me. Gunners by the looks of their attire. I cock my rifle. It’s hot in my hands, ready for any sort of attack. But I hear nothing. And I feel nothing. Not the presence of another person, not the eerie, watchful eyes of someone who might be waiting for me.  
           I kneel down to check the gunners for anything that might be useful and find two stimpacks, some Radx, and some Radaway. Something I might be needing as I didn’t pack any myself—assuming my journey would only take me as far as Abernathy Farm.  
           But my attention doesn’t stay away from the entrance of the transit station for long. And although it’s strangely quiet, it’s as if I can hear something calling for me, beckoning me to enter. Could be raiders inside. Could be ferals. Could be super mutants for all I know, but fear doesn’t dominate me. Curiosity does. That and the unshakeable feeling of peace and solace in the near future. The sort of peace that only death can bring.  
           Sure, I want to die. Mostly because I feel I’ve done everything I was meant to do. But also, I feel out of place in this world. As if it never should have been me here. And when I think back on that night in the vault—how if I would have just taken Shaun in my arms instead of Nate, I’d be the one in peaceful slumber right now.  
           Nate took my death from me. And after all I’ve done to rectify that, I feel that it’s only fitting I return the favor to him. Give myself a death worthy of his caliber. His heroism as a soldier. A sort of role reversal, of sorts. I decide it’s the only way to go. Out in a blaze of glory—the sort of ending he was much more worthy of than myself.  
           I won’t make it easy for whatever’s on the other side of the transit station. But I can say with confidence now that I no longer fear death. If anything, I welcome it with open arms. But only if it’s the sort of death I feel befitting for a man like my husband. An act of martyrdom, so to speak.  
           I enter the transit station and begin to ascend the stairs, my rifle in hand. A faint orange glow at the bottom illuminates the way. I smell a fire. Along with the molded, rotted building surrounding me. The sound of something falling in the distance echoes throughout the station, and I tighten my grip on my gun. Here we go, I think. The beginning of the end.  
          After reaching the last step, my eyes fall on the shoddy tram sitting on its track. Next to it though, a fire has been built, and a man sits hunched over, clenching his stomach. He looks as though he’s in pain, but when his eyes land on me, I see relief in them.  
           “Oh thank God,” he says. “I didn’t know if anyone would hear the broadcast. But I had to try.” He winces. “I…I need your help.”  
           “Are you okay?” I ask, but I keep my distance.  
           He winces again. “Don’t worry about me. My…my family, they’ve…been kidnapped. By raiders.” Fucking raiders. “Some trader told us about Nuka-World. Said it was a safe haven for those looking to settle down. But it was a trap.”  
           “Shocker.”  
           “I managed to get away, but…they have my wife and my son. I don’t know how long they have. Please, you have to help.”  
           I consider. This is my problem with Commonwealth folks. They’re so entitled, thinking everyone has to help them when they can’t even help themselves. “How’d you escape?” I ask, unimpressed with the man before me. Because if it were me, I never would have left without my family. Perhaps he’s a coward. Oh, the entitlement and cowardice runs rampant in the Commonwealth.  
           “I, uh…stole one of the guns. Took a couple of them out, but…they shot at me. Got me right in my side…” he winces again. I kneel down next to him to try and get a closer to look at his wounds, but he pulls away. “Please. They don’t have long.”  
           I’m skeptical. “How many raiders are we talking?”  
           “About four or five.”  
           So nothing impressive. I stand to my full height again and study the tram before me. Do I even really care? I kind of do. Not about the guy in front of me. More about his wife and son. And then I start thinking about what Nate would do in my situation. Go, of course. He’d go help the wife and child. “All right.”  
           “I’ll pay you.”  
           “I don’t care about money. Just…don’t get your hopes up.” Because for all I know, his family is probably already dead. In my experience, raiders aren’t big on keeping hostages for very long. Especially when there doesn’t seem to be any ransom involved.  
           “There,” he says while tipping his head toward a dark room behind me. “You can activate the tram from there.”  
           I groan and start walking toward the room, but a thought comes to mind. I turn to face him again. “What’s with all the dead gunners outside?”  
           He seems confused. “I don’t know anything about that.”  
           I consider. No, he probably doesn’t. By the looks of him, he hasn’t moved in a while. I enter the room and find a terminal flashing bright green in the corner, and I’m amazed at how simple it is to get power going to the tram once again. A click of a button and a password conveniently laid out next to the terminal.  
           I hear the electric charge of the tram as the motor starts up. I enter the monorail once more, and the tram has already started moving albeit very slow. “Be careful,” the man calls to me, but I only nod to him before grabbing onto the side of the moving tram and stepping inside.  
           The tram starts picking up speed. And much like my first ride in a Vertibird, I start feeling queasy. Motion sickness having been intensified after not having been in a moving object in two hundred years. And when the tram exits the tunnel, the sun beams through the windows, illuminating the tram and the world around me. So much so that a sharp pain shoots through my skull.  
My eyes, they’ve been damaged. Weakened after the accident at Bunker Hill. Though I’m thankful for not having lost my vision, it’s taken some getting used to. Like when things go from dark to light real fast, shooting pains in my head and face. Or when it’s too hot or too cold, I get headaches. And sure, it certainly hasn’t helped my ability to fight at long range. Along with the shakiness of my hands, my vision becomes blurry when something’s too far away—even when looking through a scope.  
            I groan and run my fingers over my eyes. But a voice coming through the speakers on the tram catches my attention. A recording, welcoming me to Nuka-World. Beckoning me to look here and there. Fizztop Mountain in the distance, the Nuka-World Bottling Plant to my left, and as much as I want to shield my eyes a bit more, the view of the park in the distance takes my breath away.  
           From that far, you can’t see all the destruction that befell the park. And for a brief moment, I manage to pretend that nothing ever happened at all. The size and grandeur of the park is truly astonishing as it remains standing after all these years.  
           But that’s when I hear it. Static coming through the speakers, and then the welcome voice telling me all about the fun Nuka-World has to offer is interrupted. And the static disappears. “So, Harvey bagged another sucker to help him with his ‘family’. Can’t believe that bit actually still works,” a low, gruff voice says through the speakers.  
           I feel as though my heart stops beating.  
           The man continues. “I only got a minute so you better listen and listen good. The name’s Gage. Porter Gage. And the truth is, you’ve been set up. This ain’t no rescue mission. It’s a death trap.” Son of a bitch. “But if you somehow make it through alive, I have an interesting offer for you. In the meantime, have fun and put on a good show. I’ll be watching.”  
           I’m frozen in place. The reality of the situation is starting to set in with every passing second, and now all I want to do is kill something. Sure, I know I said I wanted to die. But not like this. Not after falling victim to some witty ploy. Not after falling right into a death trap. Not exactly a great send off, if I’m being honest. Not something Nate would have fallen for. Dammit, I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that low-life scavver. He seemed off. Something seemed off from the very beginning.  
           “Fucking idiot,” I grumble while running my hands over my face. “Fucking idiot!” I kick one of the support rails next to me. I want to shoot something. I raise my rifle and bring my finger to the trigger—ready to shoot out the freaking control panel in a pathetic attempt to stop the tram on its tracks.  
           But I compose myself. I’ll need my bullets, I tell myself. I lower my gun, but I’m still fuming. “I don’t know why you’re so pissed off, girl. This is all your fault,” I say to myself. I even point my own damn finger in my face because that’s how mad I am. “This is all your fucking fault. Fucking moron.”  
           “Heh…you talking to yourself?”  
           I raise my rifle and shoot out the goddamn speaker on the tram. But that’s when I realize that man can’t hear me. But he can see me. Now, I don’t know where the cameras have been hidden. It’s actually quite amazing that some lowlife raider would even have that sort of technology. So with nothing to be done, I take a few deep breaths and close my eyes to try and get myself back to a moment of peace and balance.  
           The tram begins to slow at the station. I open my eyes and look into the abandoned station. Other than dirt, debris, and a few dead bodies, I don’t see anything too threatening. But, like the man said, it’s a death trip. And I need my wits about me.  
           I exhale heavily through my nose and approach the exit when the tram doors open. And then I hold both of my middle fingers up and in every direction where a camera might be tram. A big “fuck you” before my send off.  
           I exit the tram and tighten my grip on my rifle, ready to blow the head off of anything that might come too close. But to be honest, I have no idea what to expect. And after Porter Gage’s warning about me walking into a death trap, I’ve never been so ready to blow the head off any unsuspecting person or creature I might come in contact with.  
           “Attention all my favorite undesirables out there. In case you haven’t noticed, looks like we got ourselves some fresh meat to run the gauntlet!”  
           The voice is being emitted from a speaker I cannot see, but it isn’t the same voice from the tram. Someone new—someone sounding much more excited than Mr. Porter Gage. I start to wonder how many people are watching me at the moment.  
           I stop and set my sights at an open door on the far side of the station where the words Gauntlet have been painted in white on a wall. An arrow below the word points down a set of stairs, and as much as I don’t want to do what the wall tells me, it seems it’s the only way out. “And she’s off! Let’s hope our latest prey can draw a little…inspiration from out previous victims!”  
           As he says the words, I round the corner of the stairs. Another set of steps lead me to a room with an open door. And right near the doorway, a dead body—one riddled with bullets. I approach slowly, listening all the while. One of the good things about having been on ice for two-hundred years, I can hear everything. And I think it’s because I heard nothing for so long. So when I hear the faint sound of a motor…the ticking sound a turret makes when it’s been poorly maintained, I knew what the room before me has in store.  
           The only problem? I can’t see the turrets, but judging by the sound—there’s a lot of them. I remain standing in the doorway. The room in front of me has so much debris and blockage that a turret could be hiding anywhere.  
           My eyes drift to the bodies lying on the ground. No, I can’t see the turrets. But I see the bodies. I see how they’re lying, how they’ve fallen, and the trajectory of their blood spatter. And if that doesn’t paint a clear enough picture, well then I might as well resign myself to death right here and now.  
           I close my eyes for a moment. The hum of the machinery seems to intensify. I take a step into the room. And then another. But the door slamming shut behind me startles me, causing me to break my attention and focus on the turrets. And then it happens.  
           That dreaded ticking sound.  
           Tick tick tick tick tick.  
        _Shit._  
           I run for the only bit of cover I can see. The only place that seems somewhat safe in a room full of turrets simply because there’s no body or blood spatter on the ground. But I feel the bullets at my heels. And I can smell the oil and smoke coming from the turrets. I’m practically breathing in the powdered concrete, flying up around me as bullets hit the ground.  
           I duck down behind a fallen vending machine and shield my head, but the sound of bullets pinging off the metal hardly gives me any time to gather myself.  
           A bullet whizzes past my head, and I get further onto the ground—lying myself flat on my back. “Well, at least I know where the turrets are now.” But I’m in no position to shoot them. Not with my rifle, at least.  
           I grab the pistol from my belt and pick my head up a bit. And as if by some higher power has bestowed upon me some otherworldly senses, I manage to see the green light of one of the turrets at two o’ clock. I cock my pistol and pick my head up a bit more, and even though my hands are shaking, I manage to hold the crosshair directly over my target.  
I exhale slowly and squeeze the trigger.  
           The explosion of the turret makes me cower and cover my face, but the others fall silent. And once again, just the silent purr and humming of the other turrets in the room. I look to the exploded turret, now just a cloud of smoke and sparking wires.  
           “Nailed it.”  
           But now’s not the time to celebrate. I roll onto my side and stick my head out from around the fallen vending machine. The only turret I managed to catch a glimpse of upon entering, before the door closed on me and all hell broke loose. And now, from my position, it sits directly at high noon.  
           I squeeze my trigger again, and the turret explodes into more smoke and sparking wires, sending bits of shattered metal into the air.  
           But that dreaded ticking sound is heard again, and this time, it’s coming from ten o’clock. My breath catches in my throat. I don’t have time to move out of the line of fire, but I have time to shoot. I pull my pistol to ten o’ clock and squeeze the trigger, firing blindly at the wall. But yet another explosion from a defeated turret allows me to take another deep breath, one I figured I wouldn’t have the pleasure of taking.  
           I lie there for a second, sprawled out on my back, reveling in the fact that I’m no longer in immediate danger. But I can still hear a turret in the room somewhere. I turn my head to my right, in the direction in which I’m intended to go.  
           I see a body lying close to the exit. His blood having exploded out from behind him, letting me know that the turret is on the left side of the wall. I push myself up and start walking toward the exit of the room. And when I’m within a few feet of the fallen soldier, I kneel down behind a vending machine and peek my head around the edge.  
           There it fucking is. Rotating back and forth—waiting for some unsuspecting scavver to mosey along. I push my back up against the vending machine and cock my pistol again, knowing that once I peek around the corner again, I need to be ready to fire. And that’s exactly what I do as soon as I lean around the edge, exploding the last visible turret into the air. For a moment, I feel victorious because I no longer hear the humming of yet another unsuspecting turret.  
           But it’s only then do I notice a body only a few inches in front of me, face down with a wound to the back of his head. But it’s not a wound from a normal kind of gun. It’s too clean—hardly any sort of explosion or grey matter in sight. The only sort of wound that can be inflicted by a laser.  
           “What the…”  
           Something creaks. The sound being comparable to someone inches a squeaky door closed, and before I even have time to look in the appropriate direction, a flash of red moves past my face. I’m to my feet as fast as possible, running across the room to jump behind a counter of sorts. One that housed the first turret, but I’m not fast enough.  
           I feel something pierce my arm, the force of which spins me and knocks me to my back. “Fuck!” I shout while holding the wound on my bicep, my hand becoming warm from blood oozing out of the wound.  
           I inch myself further behind the counter, but flashes of red continue to illuminate the room. “Oh! Looks like our vic has taken a hit! But don’t get too excited because it appears to only be a flesh wound!” the voice on the speak announces, and I completely forgot I was being watched.  
           I wince and look to my arm. Sure, it’s only a flesh wound, but it burns like a son of a bitch. I untie my belt and pull off Macready’s duster. The one he gave me to wear after the Brotherhood turned on me, and I needed something less conspicuous.  
           I pull a rag from one of the pouches of my belt and wrap my wound as best I can. Not worth using a stimpack for, but it will definitely need some attention if I ever make it out of here alive. And it’s really not looking so good. Because I don’t know where the laser turret is located. I don’t know if there are any more.  
           I rest my head against the wall. The room has fallen silent once more, but I can’t help but feel defeated. All of this because I tried to help someone. Something I’ve been trying to convince myself isn’t worth a god damn anymore. But I wanted to be like Nate. I wanted to be a good man because it was him that everyone needed. Not me.  
           I’ve never been the hero everyone needed.  
           I hang my head and look at the ground beneath my legs. Broken glass rests below my boots, among other debris. But it’s the broken glass that gathers my full attention. Broken glass that looks as though it’s come from a mirror.  
           “Come on, vic, let’s get a move on! Doesn’t matter what you do. The gauntlet gets them all in the end.”  
           Sure, that might be true. But it’s not gonna be from a fucking laser turret. I lean forward and grab a large piece of broken glass. I crawl to the edge of the counter and hold my hand out, using the piece of mirror as best I can to search the area for the goddamn turret. And when the reflection catches in the glass, I stop breathing completely.  
           “Oh yeah…” The damn thing was hidden in the corners of the room, only reachable once passing the middle ground. I lower the glass and bring my pistol upward. The damn thing remains dormant, which means I have a few seconds to focus on it before it opens up and begins lighting up the room with bright red lights of death.  
           I get into a squatting position and lean up to steady my hands on the counter. Both hands on the pistol, steadying the shaking as best I can. But the turret’s eye opens, and before I can even really focus, I squeeze the trigger. I duck behind the counter once more, but the sound of an explosion followed by bits of metal hitting the ground gives me a moment to celebrate.  
           I lean up again to see the smoky nothingness in the corner of the room where the turret used to reside. I slowly stand and scan the room, waiting for any sign that something else might happen. But the door behind me opens with a loud click, and I stare at the exit skeptically before continuing further into the gauntlet.


	4. The Gauntlet Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett discovers that someone really wants her to survive the Gauntlet.*

           I survived the room of turrets, but while walking down the long hallway before me, the brightness of the sun managing to break through the shoddy, makeshift walls and illuminating the area better than I’m sure intended, I can’t help but feel something much worse lay ahead.  
           At first, little poorly hidden traps line the hallways and rooms before me. A blow-torch trap here, a shotgun on a timer there. All easy enough to detect, easy enough to disarm. But I feel as though these traps are in plain sight to distract me from the real threat looming around every corner. Or maybe raiders are just dumb. Or maybe the gauntlet has been tampered with to make it easier to survive for whatever reason.  
           I round a corner and make my way up a small flight of makeshift wooden steps, but I slow my pace. The smell of something awful—something putrid begins wafting in the air. It’s the smell of rot. The smell of decay. On the ground, sticky, coagulated blood becomes more prevalent with each and every step I take.  
I exit the stairway and enter a room. The source of the rot, and as many things as I’ve seen in my time in the Commonwealth, nothing in the world could have ever prepared me for the horrible, macabre sight in front of me.  
           Wooden posts with impaled bodies on the tips, severed heads. Blood surrounds the base of these wooden posts, all stuck together in some kind of elaborate knot. “Jesus fucking Christ,” I mutter.  
           The bodies, they bake in the heat of the gauntlet, and the smell is enough to make me want to die, though by the abundance of flies in the room, it seems they couldn’t be happier with the turnout of these poor beings. It’s normal to them. Though what is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly.  
           As much as I try to continue moving forward, the stench from the rotting bodies makes it difficult for me to even continue. My own body fights me on this. My eyes, they water. Not because I’m crying. Because my body is trying to cleanse them of the horrific sight—the thickness of the decay burning them out of my skull, it would seem.  
           The air is so thick I can taste them in my mouth. And as my body fights my wishes, I turn away from the display and start vomiting. An involuntary muscle spasm in the core of me. Oh god, the lurching of my stomach is unrelenting.  
           “Hoho! Looks like our vic hasn’t much got the stomach for this! And I thought she’d at least make it a bit further!”  
           I’m gagging now, trying my best to soldier forward. M y face is leaking many different fluids, trying it’s best to reject the sight, the smell, the taste of it all. I raise my sleeve to my mouth to try and cover the smell and the taste, but my eyes continue to water. “Oh, you sick fucks.”  
           I keep my back against the wall while inching past the display. I keep my sleeve over my mouth, but the closer I get, the more I need to purge myself again. I hold it inside of me as best I can though, and when I turn the corner to enter a corridor, I move quicker than I have since entering the gauntlet. Not the wisest move I’m sure, but that display—it’s the stuff of nightmares.       And I can’t wait to put a bullet in the head of the one responsible.  
           I turn another corner, but the sound of a shotgun going off causes me to scream and fall to the ground. Through the speakers in the gauntlet, the announcer begins laughing while I pick my head up and look at the double barreled shotgun that if just adjusted a bit more to the entrance of the room, would have blown my head off completely.  
           Someone has definitely messed with this gauntlet. Or they’re not trying to kill me at all. More like fuck with me emotionally. I don’t know which is worse.  
           I enter a room with three doors and stare at them skeptically. “And it’s decision time in the gauntlet! Doesn’t matter which door you choose. They all lead to death.”  
           “Oh my god, shut up,” I groan. I continue to study the red doors before me. There’s something suspicious on the one on the far left though. An even brighter shade of red paint in the shape of an arrow, pointed right at the handle. Either a hint or a ruse, but I know better than to trust a raider.  
           I reach for the doorknob on the middle door and swing it open before raising my rifle to point at anything that might be hiding inside. But only a toy monkey sitting on a perch is inside. The monkey’s eyes light up and he starts banging on the cymbals in his hand.  
           I don’t want to know what that means, so I close the door and consider taking the advice from the bright red arrow on the door to my left. When I swing it open and hold up my rifle, nothing intimidating comes into view. Just another corridor.  
           I reach a set of stairs leading down into what looks like a dark cellar. My stomach turns at the thought of what might be waiting for me below. I walk slowly, my hands clenching my rifle and my finger on the trigger, but halfway down the steps, my Pip-boy starts going wild with the insufferable ticking the built in Geiger counter emits within feet of radiation.  
           I look at the Pip-boy on my wrist. The exposure is high. So much so that I retreat back up the stairs. “Shit…” I have nothing but two Radx pills and one pack of Radaway. It’s a cheap shot, putting someone out this way. Because you can’t kill radiation.  
           “I hope someone brought their Radaway, ‘cause our little vic is about to get roasted like a squirrel on a stick!”  
           I try to look for another way out. This can’t be my only option, I tell myself. Unlike the rest of the wasteland, my tolerance to radiation is practically non-existent. And if the turrets and hidden traps won’t do away with me, I’m certain the radiation will.  
           It can’t end like this.  
           I move to the boarded windows and start pulling the wood off the walls, but chicken wire resides beneath the wood. Defeated by fucking chicken wire. I hit the wall next to me and rest my head against the cool surface.  
           “Aw, trying to leave early, vic? There ain’t no way out of the gauntlet, at least not alive!”  
           I turn onto my back and lower myself onto the ground, defeated. But there’s no way in hell I’m going down into that cellar. They’ll just have to send people in after me, and I’ll take as many of them out as I can before my inevitable demise.  
           “Come on, vic! Let’s get a move on!”  
           I sit there for the longest time, lost in a trance. Wondering what Macready and Preston must be thinking back in Sanctuary Hills. Wondering if they’ve sent a rescue mission after me, and even though Macready’s protectiveness normally brings me some sort of ease, I was stupid enough to venture to Nuka-World without anyone knowing.  
           They have no idea where to look for me.  
           Through the slabs of wood, I can see the sky start turning bright pink. I’ve been stagnant for hours, and even the announcer has gotten bored and left me to wallow in my defeat. I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before they send people in to come kill me. But before the room becomes completely dark, my eyes wander to a dark green chest in the corner of the room. A chest I didn’t notice before. Turned on its side and damaged in more places than whole, it doesn’t look like the sort of crate that would have anything useful inside.  
           But never leave any stone unturned, Macready used to say.  
           I push myself up and approach the crate to turn it upright. I lift the lid, and at first, just as I suspected, I see nothing useful. Old rags, torn clothes. Dirty bottles of water. But after rifling through a bit more, I find an orange suit at the very bottom of the crate. I pull it out and examine the thing. “Hazmat suit?” But without the helmet.  
           Great, a lot of good that does me. I toss it aside and look further into the crate. Beneath the hazmat suit, a bottle of Radx and two pouches of Radaway. Curious.  
           I look at the hazmat suit again. Maybe I don’t need the helmet. No, I actually really do. But maybe the suit can still be of use to me. While it seems I’m going to have to inhale lung fulls of radiation, the bottle of Radx can make it a less lethal dose. And the hazmat suit, well I can use it to keep the radiation off my clothes. Because what’s the point in getting through the radiation unscathed if it’s just going to attach to my clothes anyway?  
           I pull the suit on over my attire and pop myself full of Radx. Man, this is a bad idea, I keep telling myself. This is such a bad idea, and it’s probably going to end with me puking up my guts, literally.  
           I stand at the top of the steps and look down into the dark cellar. The sun has all but left me, so it no longer paints the way through the cellar through the boards on the walls and windows. I turn on my Pip-boy light. The only source of light I have for the cellar, and even then, it seems a bit weak in the darkness of the room.  
           I start descending the steps. Again, the Geiger counter on my Pip-boy starts going crazy, and my level of exposure is already in the twenties. I debate going back upstairs. But I can’t wait there forever. The radiation will still be there in the morning.  
           I sigh. “This is crazy, this is crazy…”  
           I start walking down the stairs again. Barrels irradiated fluids surround the room. At first, I move slowly. Carefully. Waiting for something far more disturbing than the radiation to come out and kill me. But when I enter the cellar completely, I see a door on the far side of the room. I run for it, but it’s locked. “Shit!”  
           My Geiger counter reads the exposure in the thirties now, and I’m already starting to feel sick. I look over my shoulder and see a shelf in the corner of the room. I have no bobby pins, but maybe something could help me pry the lock open on the shelf.  
           I run to it and start searching the shelves frantically, but nothing useful comes into view. And the sound of my Geiger counter is making it hard for me to focus. I almost decide to run back up the stairs, but a small box on the bottom shelf grabs my attention. I grab onto it and tear it open. Inside, a key.  
           “Someone definitely wants me to survive this thing.”  
           I drop the box and run to the door again, and I feel as though I can’t move fast enough. The lock clicks and I kick the door open. I get as far away from the room as possible and as fast as possible, and my Geiger counter begins slowing.  
           But I feel weak. My legs, they feel heavy. And before the ticking of the Geiger counter even comes to a stop, uneven ground knocks me off balance and sends me tumbling down into a pit of fallen concrete and dirt.  
           I come to a screeching halt, kicking up dirt and choking my attempts to gasp for air. I pick my head up to see that a cave-in has led me even further into the gauntlet. The collapsed floor, it collapsed right into a room, barely lit with a fire in a trash bin on the far side.  
           My body hurts. I feel weak. But the Geiger counter on my arm ticks away, although much less exposure is being read. I tear the hazmat suit off of me and toss it aside before scooting myself to the far side of the room. The ticking, it slows and then stops completely while sitting next to the fire.  
           I remove a pouch of Radaway from my belt and lift the sleeve of my unharmed arm. But everything looks foggy. I need to move fast. The exposure, it’s already taken its toll. I rip the needle from its pouch and extend my arm before pumping my fist a few times. One of my veins in the crook of my arm becomes prominent, though my shaking hands make it difficult to focus. But I pierce the skin, and when the chamber of the needle fills with blood, I know I made it in the vein.  
           I’m no longer panting while holding the bag of Radaway high up in the air. Because for now, it seems I will live to see another day.  
I hang the bag on a nail sticking out of the wall and rest my head against the concrete behind my head. But even with Radaway being pumped into my arm, I feel fuzzy, lightheaded. Weak, shaky, nauseous, and above all else, tired. Extremely tired.  
           “Good morning! It’s a beautiful day here in Nuka-World, and for those of you missed out on last night’s events, our vic is still alive!” I awake to the loud, obnoxious verbal meanderings of the announcer. “It seems she barely made it out of the radiation room with her life, but I wouldn’t worry too much. The gauntlet still has lots in store for this one!”  
           I bang my head into the wall. Back in this hell hole.  
           I look at the empty bag of Radaway on the wall and then rip the needle from my arm before pulling the sleeve of Macready’s duster back up. I feel much better than the previous night, but I decide to use one of my stimpacks for good measure. Hopefully the end of this gauntlet will be coming sometime soon, I tell myself while standing to exit my safe haven.  
           The next room, a set of steps leads me down into what looks like a storage room. It’s mostly dark, other than a spotlight on the far side of the room illuminating another toy monkey. But I stop at the foot of the stairs. That humming sound of machinery, I hear it again. I crouch down and turn on my Pip-boy light.  
           Along the sides of the room, shelves lined with machine gun turrets, though they haven’t picked up on my presence just yet. I scoff. “Really?” And from that position, I pick them off one by one. The sounds of the explosions being so loud and frequent that it muffles the sound of the announcer commenting on my chosen method of getting out alive.  
When that’s done, I approach the stupid monkey as his eyes start lighting up and he starts smashing his cymbols together. I pull out my pistol and shoot him in the face.  
“Stupid monkey.”  
           The desk behind the toy, I find a set of keys to gain entry to the next room. Again, nothing too impressive. Abandoned tram tunnels. And sure, there are mines. But the darkness of the tunnels allows the green lights on the mines to be seen from far enough away that they really cause no problems for me.  
           “Stupid.”  
           “Oh, come on! I knew we should have put turrets in there!” the announcer yells.  
           “Yeah, because those have done so well at picking me off.”  
           I reach the end of the tunnels. A chain link fence comes into view, and a makeshift wooden bridge leads the way to a door on the other side of the room. Okay, I shouldn’t say bridge. It looks more like a balance beam of unstable slabs of wood.  
           I look over the edge and see that the bottom of the room is filled with dirty, murky water. I don’t much enjoy the sight of this. I kick a few pebbles from the ledge into the water below, but nothing happens. Still, I’m not convinced. “Seeewie!” I shout to the water below. And with that, the sound of something bursting through the ground, sending water up into the air causes me to flinch a bit. Three mirelurks appear down below, but I’m not a bit surprised by the sight of them. “Uh huh…that’s what I thought.”  
           I look to the beam leading to the door across the room. It’s not really a vote of confidence, but I have to try and cross. I’m not about to willingly jump into a pit of mirelurks. There’s just no way.  
           I sling my rifle over my shoulder again and brace myself. “All right. All those years of gymnastic are about to pay off.” I place one of my feet onto the beam, but my body wavers. I hold my arms out to balance myself, but a nervous chuckle escapes me. “All those years of gymnastic, like, two-hundred something years ago.”  
           I walk slowly, the wood creaking beneath my boots with every step I take. And every step I take, the mirelurks are chomping at the bit. I do my best not to focus on them. I try to focus on the beam in front of me. But when I reach the middle, I feel the wood give in a bit. “Oh…okay…it’s okay…” I stop walking and remove my rifle from my shoulder. I’m too heavy for this part of the wood.  
           I look to the small bit of level ground surrounding the door in front of me before tossing my rifle onto the edge. A small victory for myself because the dang thing actually made it to the ledge. Now the shotgun.  
           I pull it from my back and toss it alongside the rifle. Now, I really can’t fall in because all I have is a pistol on my belt. But the wood no longer creaks beneath me, and when I make it to level ground, I’m relieved to know that I won’t have to face three mirelurks with only a handgun.  
           I sling my shotgun over my shoulder again and then lift my rifle into my hands before kicking the door open. It flies back into the wall with a forceful crash, and I enter the room, ready for a fight. “What the hell! That door’s supposed to be boarded up!” the announcer yells.  
           “Sounds like you’ve got a traitor on your hands,” I mumble while keeping my rifle at eye level, pointing it in every direction as I continue to walk through the room.  
I enter a stairwell. Bits of string hang from the ceiling, and attached to a number of them are grenades. So I do my best to navigate through them, careful to barely touch them, even having to crawl underneath a few. Sure, it’s unnerving. But I’m ready to be out of this gauntlet, and I’m wondering if the end is somewhere near.  
           I make it to a door at the top of the stairs. Inside, I find myself in the room of what looks like an abandoned warehouse with no threats in sight. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. So I walk slowly.  
           Arrows painted on the wall lead me to another door, and when I exit, I’m blinded by the brightness of the sun. “Ah,” I groan while lowering my head and shielding my eyes.  
           “Looks like the vic has made it to the home stretch! But now it’s time for a little audience participation!”  
           I lift my head again but keep my eyes squinted. The sun feels as though it’s burning my eyes from my skull, the flare of which is almost blinding. But I manage to make out my surroundings. I’m in a bunker, of sorts. The floor is dirt, the walls are wooden slabs, but above me is a fence acting as the ceiling.  
           And that’s when I see someone approaching me from above. It’s so startling that I start backing out of the room, but the door from which I exited slams shut, locking me into my bunker, forcing me to face the person coming after me.  
           Bullets fly at me, and I dive forward to avoid them. I roll onto my knees and point my rifle toward the fenced roof, but my attacker has already disappeared. I scan the area looking for any sign of them when someone approaching from my upper left catches my attention.  
           I lift my rifle and shoot before I even have the chance to really aim, and much to my pleasure, the attacker drops dead, dripping blood through the fence and on the dirt ground below.  
“Holy shit! She actually got one! I don’t think the Pack’s gonna be too happy about all that,” the announcer says.  
           But now isn’t the time to linger. I start running through the bunker, only doubling back after turning a corner to see two attackers standing above me. Bullets whiz past me. I take a moment to think of what to do, but I don’t have a lot of time to contemplate. Another attacker comes at me from the front, and I fire a shot at him.  
I graze his arm, and he drops his gun before running out of view.  
           I peek my head around the corner to see the two previous attackers have left. And that’s when I make a run for it, never slowing for anything. I manage to make it past a turret before it even begins firing, and I’ve reduced myself to my pistol to allow me to run faster.  
           Another attacker comes from my left. I point and shoot, missing her completely. Though it seems the shock of being fired at was enough to scare her off. And before I know it, I find myself at a door—hopefully, the way out of this godforsaken place.  
           I slam the door shut behind me and start backing away, but the sound of an audience cheering in the distance distracts me. To my right, a bumper car arena, fenced off and barricaded with what looks like bullet proof glass.  
           I see people in the stands. And in the arena itself, two men. One wearing power armor, the other tending to him. “All right, everyone. It’s time to make your way to the bumper car arena, because the main event is about to begin!” the announcer yells over the sound of an alarm.  
           I look at the corridor before me. A doorway leading to a set of stairs at the end leads me to believe that’s where I’m supposed to go.  
           After climbing the stairs and exiting into what looks like a mezzanine overlooking the bumper car arena, I try to get a better look at the man wearing the caged power armor. Surely I won’t be fighting him. Not that I’ve never fought someone wearing power armor before—I have. But it’s a bitch.  
           “Got me all wired up yet, Gage?” a thick Australian accent says through the speakers in the small corridor in which I find myself.  
           “Yeah boss.” That voice. The same voice from the tram. And I remember the man’s name being Gage.  
           “Finally, now go shut off that alarm,” the Australian accent says again.  
           “All right. I’m on it,” Gage says, and I watch him disappear into the maintenance booth on the side of the arena.  
           “Ah, here’s my next victim now,” the accent says, forcing my attention away from Gage. “Don’t look like much. Here’s a quick rundown of how this works. You go stock up, make yourself presentable, and then we’re gonna give these folks a show. A show where I decorate these walls here with your lovely brains. Thanks to this suit, I’m the only one that wins this fight. Period. You think you’re a hot shot making it this far? Think again.”  
           Well shit.  
           “All right, Gage. Let her through. Something tells me I’m really going to enjoy this.”  
           The door to my right opens, and I descend another set of stairs before entering a dark storage room. I scan the area to find anything that might be of use to me, but nothing is in sight. Nothing that’s going to help me take out a maniac wearing power armor.  
           My only bit of comfort is that in my time spent with the Brotherhood, Proctor Ingram instructed me on the weaknesses of power armor. The best place to aim, which parts malfunction the quickest. It’s all I really have, at this point.


	5. Porter Gage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett and Gage finally meet, face to face.*

           I enter into a locker room and close the door behind me, effectively shutting out the sound of the announcer getting all the audience amped up for the fight in which they’re about to see. And hearing that the longest time against Colter stands at only a minute and thirty seconds, well…it’s not a vote of confidence for how this is going to play out.  
           “All right, listen the hell up,” a voice coming from seemingly nowhere says, somewhat startling me. “If you want to make it out of this alive, I’ve only got a minute.” It’s Gage’s voice. I can tell because his accent is one I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing since before the war. Low, gruff, Southern as all get out. “Find the intercom on the wall. I’ll make it quick.”  
           I scan the area until the little voice box comes into view. I’m skeptical of this man, honestly, but it seems he’s my only option. And my curiosity gets the better of me because for some reason, he wants me to live. I push the button. “Okay…I’m listening,” I say.  
           “My kinda gal. Look: you made it this far, you obviously got skill. But this fight coming up is rigged. You get me? Overboss Colter…his power armor’s set up to draw energy from the electric grid in the arena. Damn thing’s invincible. You name it, someone’s tried it. Miniguns, grenades. Not a scratch. You get what I’m saying? ”  
           I roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah…I wouldn’t expect anything less from a raider.”  
           He laughs. “You know us well then. You want to win? I stashed a weapon in the lockers. Get it.”  
           I turn to the lockers and scan the numerous rows, but one in particular has a red arrow painted on the front. The same kind of arrow I saw painted on the door in the gauntlet. Suddenly, it all becomes clear. I think I know exactly who might have lended me a hand in the gauntlet. I approach the locker and pull it open, but the only thing that I see inside is a small, red gun. I pick it up. “The thirst zapper?”  
           And now, I’m annoyed. I approach the intercom again. “Is this…a squirt gun?”  
           “Yeah, I know what it looks like. You’re just gonna have to trust me.”  
           “Seriously? Is this some kind of joke?”  
           “Nope. It’s the perfect weapon. Once the water hits Colter’s electrically-charged power armor, the circuits are gonna short out. It’ll kill his defenses, but you’ll only have so much time to do some damage before they recharge. You take him out, I promise you, it’ll be worth every minute spent in this gauntlet.”  
           Sure, it makes sense. But what doesn’t make sense is trusting a raider. Still, I have no other options—though the idea of running out there and using a squirt gun as my main defense makes me want to puke. Or maybe that’s too much radiation.  
           Yeah, I’m having a difficult time trusting this guy. For all I know, I could run out there, squirt the guy with water and then have everyone laughing at my stupidity before Colter bashes my brains in. I contemplate.  
           “Hey…I know you’re still in there.”  
           “Were…you the one…helping me through the gauntlet?”  
           “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
           “Hmm…then I never saw a squirt gun…” I start to turn away from the wall.  
           “All right, all right,” he says, annoyance in his voice. “I might have slipped a few things inside to help along the way. Make sure you made it to the arena in one piece.”  
           “Why?” I ask.  
           “Now’s not really the time for all these questions. Overboss is getting antsy. But look, I can tell you’re a bit…apprehensive on taking my advice. So I’ll try to make it simple for you. Why would I waste the effort in helping you through the gauntlet if I just wanted you killed in the arena?”  
           That’s where I was going with all of it, yeah. I sigh and look at the squirt gun in my hands. “Staying hydrated is half the battle, right?”  
           “He ain’t got a choice. All right, it’s time. I’ll open the door. See you on the other side,” he says, though I linger in the locker room a bit longer, scrounging for anything that might be of some use against Colter and his power armor.  
           Even though Gage has bestowed upon me the secret weapon, killing a man wearing power armor suddenly doesn’t get any easier. He’s still wearing power armor, and I know this fight warrants the use of my combat shotgun.  
           I find an extra stash of shells in one of the lockers along with a few extra stimpacks hidden away in the bathroom of the locker room. The humming sound of machinery from the room next door gathers my attention. I enter what looks like a maintenance area where I find a fusion core stuck in one of the generators.  
           Can’t hurt, I think while grabbing it from its slot. The lights blink a bit and then shut off, effectively shutting down the generator as well. And while making my way back through the locker room, I hear Gage speak through the intercom once more.  
           “Huh. Power to the arena’s down by thirty percent. You do that? Not bad.”  
            Yeah, you’re not the only one with bright ideas. I exit the locker room and make my way down a long corridor, and before I know it, the roar from the crowd is audible once more. I move in front of a metal door—the windows on either side painting a clear picture of Colter and the arena.  
           “All right!” Colter yells when I’m in position, and I can’t lie. My heart starts pounding in my chest while clenching the squirt gun in my hands. “Disciples! Are you ready for blood?” The crowd roars.  
           “Death…death…death…death!”  
           “And the Pack! Are you ready for things to get wild?” Colter yells, and I hear more shouting and even the rustling of the chain link fence separating the arena and spectators. I roll my eyes. “Operators! Are you ready to see me notch another kill?” The crowd cheers, and I’m becoming anxious. I’m ready to get this over with, whether it ends in my death or not. Because standing in this fucking little hallway with a squirt gun in hand is humiliating.  
           “And you,” Colter says while focusing on me. “Are you ready to die?” The door swings open, and my heart falls into my stomach. “Let’s do this!”  
           I run into the arena, squirt gun in hand. But I don’t run for Colter. No, that’s outright suicide with his gun in hand, ready to shoot me straight in the head. I turn left and duck down behind one of the bumper cars, and the crowd starts laughing.  
           “Uh oh, it looks like Colter has successfully scared the shit out of our vic!” the announcer yells, laughing all the while.  
           “Yeah, laugh it up, jackass.”  
           “Come on, you!” Colter yells. “Come out and play.”  
           My breath quivers as I look at the squirt gun. The fucking squirt gun—I can’t believe I let a raider talk me into grabbing a toy over the flame thrower I saw in the locker room. “Uh…why don’t…you come over here?” I yell.  
           “My pleasure, love,” he says, but Colter doesn’t come over. Instead, he throws a Molotov cocktail in my direction, plastering the wall before me in alcohol and flames.  
           It’s so powerful that it feels like it burns my face. “Son of a…”  
           I push myself from behind the bumper car. I keep low and crouched. Really, the only thing I have going for me right now is he doesn’t know where I am. “Come on out, darling! You’re only making this harder on yourself!” he yells.  
           I sneak from around another car. Finally, once the flames from his cocktail has died down, Colter starts making his way to my last seen location. I take the opportunity to sneak up behind him, but the roar from the crowd sends a chill up my spine.  
           “Oh man, it looks like she’s trying to get the jump on Overboss!” The announcer yells.  
           “Shut the fuck up,” I say through gritted teeth.  
           Colter checks behind the car, only to be disappointed. “Where are you, you little coward,” he nips.  
           “Right behind you,” I say, and before he can even turn to face me, I start squirting him with the damn thirst zapper.  
           The crowd roars with laughter. The announcer almost can’t get the words out, and Colter turns to face me with the quickness, the blue electric current still in full swing around his power armor. “What’s that? A bit of water?” he laughs.  
           God dammit, Gage. I drop the squirt gun to the ground and start backing away—reaching for my shotgun on my back as I do. But that’s when it happens. A surge of electricity being shot from Colter’s armor, and then nothing. No field of blue, no electricity whatsoever surrounding his power armor.  
           “What the…” he mutters while looking at his hands.  
            I am stunned. I look over my shoulder to Gage standing in the booth. He gives me the thumbs up, and for a moment, my mind goes blank.  
            _Shoot him, idiot._  
            I look at the shotgun in my hands and cock the damn thing. “What just happened?!” The announcer yells. “It looks like the vic has knocked the power out of Colter’s suit!”  
           Bang! One shot of the shotgun, and Colter staggers backwards. I move in on him, cocking and shooting with every step, breaking off bits and pieces of his power armor with every advance. And one more to the chest sends him into a kneeling position.  
            Sparks fly, and before I get too close, I see the surge of blue light coming up around his armor again. And it’s as if it magically gives him the strength to stand. “Shit…” I back away and grab the squirt gun from the ground before running off course, but I can feel the bullets from Colter’s gun on my heels.  
            I dive behind another bumper car. This time, I’m facing the audience as they bang on the glass and make obscene gestures at me. Some of them even signal to Colter, letting him know exactly where I am. I give one of them the finger, but the sound of bullets whizzing past me cause me to bury my head into my arms.  
            _Run, you idiot!_  
           I crawl out from behind the car and take off across the arena, but Colter’s back stays to me. No wonder he has to wear power armor. His situational awareness seems to be lacking, and even better, it seems he can’t move very fast in that thick, metal, electrified fortress. With his back to me, I figure this will be as easy as it gets, though I won’t draw attention to myself this time.  
I run at him, and when he turns to me, I drop to my knees and slide closer to him, thirst zapper in hand. I soak him with water, and he staggers back—now even more afraid of the thirst zapper than my shotgun.  
           The electrified field shoots out again and then is non-existent, permitting me to shoot a few more rounds of buckshot into his power armor, and when a piece of his helmet explodes, I feel victorious.  
           Before I can even aim my gun at his face though, Colter raises his rifle with one hand and fires a shot. Right into my shoulder.  
           I shout in pain, and the force of the shot knocks me back onto my ass. I grip my shoulder while struggling to move back and away from him.  
      _The pain is nothing compared to death._  
           Sure, I’m terrified at the sight of him towering over me. But his defenses are still down. And the sick bastard just doesn’t seem content on putting a bullet into my head. No, he wants me to suffer. I scramble to get to my feet. The audience roars with excitement. This could very well be the end of the line.  
           “Give it up, love. No one beats me. Not in my domain.”  
           I cock my shotgun and point it at his head. “Tell that to my friend here.” I see his power armor spark. I hardly even have a second, and when I pull the trigger, I expect nothing to really happen. But at the sight of Colter’s head exploding into the air, sending blood splatter all around him, I become frozen.  
           He falls onto the ground. And then I just stare at him for the longest time, stunned, my own heavy panting becoming enveloped in the roar from the audience and the disbelief in the announcer’s voice.  
           “Holy shit! I don’t…I don’t even know what this means! Colter, man, he’s out!” the announcer yells. Gage, what the hell just happened?”  
           My eyes drift to the audience. They don’t seem happy, and I can’t help but feel I’m about to be torn apart by hundreds of angry raiders.  
           “You saw it. We all saw it! Colter’s dead. We got ourselves a new Overboss.”  
           “This chick? Are you sure, Gage?” the announcer asks.  
           I sling my shotgun over my back again, but the pain from the gunshot wound to my shoulder becomes maddening. I wince and pull Macready’s duster back. The bullet is still inside. Son of a bitch.  
           “She survived the gauntlet. She was smart enough to take my advice, and strong enough to kill Colter. She’s what we need,” Gage says, and I turn to the booth where he stands. Him and I, we need to have some words. “How about we show some respect to our new leader?” he says, but I hardly register his words. The boos, the hisses from the audience—it holds my attention.  
I’m not walking out of here alive. That much I know. The crowd, they’re all banging on the glass, shaking the chain link fence around the arena. All itching to get a piece of me—the woman who took down their Overboss, whatever the hell that is. Their leader, I can assume. Fucked up thing is, I wouldn’t have been able to do it if it weren’t for their little friend, Porter Gage. And once again, I find myself in a position in which I’m not too keen. Having to trust a fucking raider.  
           “All right, all right, now get the hell outta here. I’ll show the new boss around,” Gage says, and I watch the audience start filing out of the arena. It doesn’t stop them from making obscene gestures at me though, banging on the windows, moaning and griping. “What’d I tell you? Worked like a charm.” Gage says through a speaker, pulling my attention away from the disgruntled raiders hastily taking their leave from the arena.  
           I approach the glass separating Gage and I. And for the first time, I set eyes on the raider who saved my life. A situation I never expected to find myself. He stands on the other side of the glass, smirking proudly at me. His brown him, shaved haphazardly into a short Mohawk. He wears a steel, yellow eyepatch over his right eye to match his steel, yellow cage armor. Though I assume him to be in his late thirties, Gage looks tired. Worn. Like he’s lived a life much more traumatizing than my own.  
           Something I didn’t think possible. But even more distracting about him—something I’ve never seen in any raider I come across, the one eye I can see—his good eye—holds a bit of kindness in them. A warm, welcoming sort of expression. And dare I say, even a bit of hope and compassion?  
           “I honestly thought you were full of shit.”  
           “Yeah, well, I wasn’t.”  
           “I see that. Death by squirt gun. I’d love to see the message on his tombstone.”  
           “Tell me about it. I wish I had a better look at his face when the suit shorted out,” he says. Me too, actually, but his face was hidden most of the time. “I get that you have no idea what’s going on, and everything is coming at you real fast, but you need to listen.”  
           “No, I think I get it,” I say, and Gage seems unconvinced by my response.  
           “Oh really,” he says, matter-of-factly.  
           “Sure. You wanted the Overboss dead but it couldn’t be an inside job. Although, there’s a much easier way to go about this sort of thing.”  
           “Oh yeah? How’s that?” he asks, somewhat entertained.  
           “It’s this little thing called democracy. You should look into it. And if you wanted the job so bad, why didn’t you just take him on yourself?”  
           “Oh my God, you have no idea what’s going on,” he says.  
           “Sure I do. You wanted the job but you needed someone to do your dirty work. The perfect plan, luring some unsuspecting traveler into your little death trap and secretly helping them take out the boss? Perfect plan.”  
           “And it would be. If you were at all right about me. But I ain’t got no interest in being Overboss. That position, according to the decree, is now yours.”  
           It takes a moment for his words to sink in—to really make sense in my brain. Sure, I’m used to people in the Commonwealth shoving me into a leadership position. It happened with the Minutemen. It happened with The Brotherhood, and The Institute—though I was undercover with them. Really, from my experience, it seems all the Commonwealth wants someone to change things but they don’t want to be that change.  
           But I can’t be in charge of another operation. Especially not an operation involving fucking raiders. “All I’m asking is that you trust me on this and give it a shot. I swear it’ll be worth it,” he says, and the last bit, I notice a bit of desperation in his voice. Something I’m certain he didn’t wish to reveal, but I become intrigued by him. Never have I witnessed such a small yet revealing bit of a raider.  
           But my skepticism gets the better of me. Because I’ve also never met a raider who’s worth a damn to their word. “Sure. And while you’re at it, I suppose next you’ll be offering me a million caps.”  
           “All right, all right. I get it. You don’t trust me…”  
           I consider. “I trust you about as much as I ever expected to trust a raider.”  
           “Well, it’s a start. Look, all I’m asking is that you hear me out. I ain’t tryin’ to trick you or nothin’ here. But I need your help.”  
           I feel somewhat obligated to at least hear him out. Especially since if it weren’t for him, I’d be dead. I sigh in frustration because all I really want to do is go back to Sanctuary Hills and tend to my wounds. Regroup a bit. And suddenly, I very much want to go to Goodneighbor and pay my respects to Hancock.  
           The very thought of him makes my eyes water. “Okay,” I say weakly while looking back at Gage through the plate glass window. “I’ll hear you out. I feel I owe you that much.”  
           “Well, I appreciate that. But this ain’t the place. Let’s go to the Overboss’—your new quarters. The restaurant on top of good old Fizztop Mountain. We can talk there.”  
           “You got medical supplies there?”  
           “We got everything you need. Just let me get that door for you.” Gage moves to a terminal and unlocks the door, but I’m hesitant to enter. “You comin’?” he asks, and really, the only reason I exit the arena is because I have nowhere else to go.  
           We exit the bumper cars arena, and I’m thankful to enter into the outdoors once more—though the sun is blinding. Still, the fresh air is invigorating after being locked inside the gauntlet for a day and a half.  
           The entire walk to Fizztop Mountain, Gage informs me of the three raider ganges residing in the park. The Disciples, The Operators, and The Pack. But other than Colter being a piece of shit and the three gangs ready to tear each other to bits, I don’t really hear much else from him. I’m lost in a world of amusement. The park—limited to only a small section near the entrance, is certain a sight to be admired, even with raiders running rampant and tormenting traders as they go about their day.  
           Even more distracting, the snide comments I keep hearing as Gage and I make our way through the park. As if any raider we cross is ready to put a bullet in my head, the only thing protecting me from certain death being Gage’s presence.  
           We make it to Fizzop Mountain and take a makeshift elevator to the top where the restaurant is located. Gage talks all the while, but I’m not listening. I’m lost in the view of the park, and the higher we go, the more of the Commonwealth I can see.  
           A truly astounding sight, comparable to the first time I boarded the Prydwen.  
           The memory of that event sends a cold chill up my spine, and I start to see things in hindsight. And organization recruiting me for help and then turning on me in the worst way possible. I can’t possibly let history repeat itself. I still care for too many people.  
           “So here we are. Your new quarters,” Gage says while stepping off the lift once we’ve reached the top floor. A large dwelling space, opened up completely to the view of the park, the panoramic windows having been busted out completely. “Don’t mind the décor. Colter had…strange taste. But this view is something, ain’t it?”  
           I step off the lift and examine the space that is now “my own.” But I still can’t fathom why this man would put so much trust in me. “I don’t get it, Gage. Why make me Overboss? You seem much more suited to lead this pack of misfits than myself.”  
           “Not at all. Leading outright ain’t my style. And I won’t lie, there’s a lot of people real pissed at me for even supporting Colter in the first place.”  
           “Well they certainly don’t seem pleased that I’m around.”  
           “No, but give it time. Look, I ain’t gonna lie. I helped get Colter into power. Thought he was what we needed at the time. Big, strong, didn’t take shit from no one. But Colter got lazy. Turned into a real piece of shit—pissed a lot of people off. His death…it was something us and the leaders of the gangs have been planning for a while.”  
           “So why not put one of the leaders in charge?”  
           “And have one gang favored over another? No way. This place, thanks to Colter, is a freaking powder keg waiting to blow.”  
           Stubborn ass. I sigh and try my best to think of a way to decline his offer while still being gracious that he went out on a limb to help me. “Gage, I appreciate you helping me. Believe me, I’m fully aware that if it weren’t for you, I’d be dead right now. But this isn’t a life I want for myself. I’m not a raider, and I promise that I’m not what you need.”  
           “Before you start pissing all over the plan, just hear me out,” he snaps.  
           But the pain in my shoulder is intensifying. “No. I need medical supplies. I don’t know if you saw the fight, but I’ve been shot. And there’s a bullet in my shoulder. Right now, as we speak.”  
           “Oh no, you gonna live?” He mocks.  
           “I don’t appreciate your tone.”  
           “Hang on, I got some stuff in my section that might do the trick.” I watch Gage disappear into the back of the restaurant through a set of double doors, giving me a moment to glance around my new accommodations, should I decide to take the job. Which he’s doing a poor job of convincing of doing at this point.  
           I move to one of the chairs located at what used to be a bar and start removing Macready’s duster to get a better look at my gunshot wound. Nothing that requires a stimpack, I’m sure. But I know it won’t heal until I get the bullet out.  
           Gage reappears a few minutes later carrying a bit of cloth with something folded up inside. He takes a seat next to me at the bar and places the cloth in front of me. Wrapped inside, a pair of pliers. “We got any alcohol in here?”  
           “Damn. Not even on the job for a day, and I’ve driven you to drink.”  
           “It’s for the bullet hole, Gage,” I say while examining the thing. Gage stands and makes his way behind the bar. I hear him rustling about, tossing empty bottles about before moving next to me with a bottle of vodka in his hands.  
           “This all right?”  
           “It’s perfect,” I say while unscrewing the top. I take a swig of the vodka, wince from the horrendous taste, and then pour a bit on my shoulder. “Son of a bitch!”  
           “You don’t have a very high pain tolerance, do ya?” he asks.  
           I laugh while burying my face in my arm. An annoyed laugh, one I make damn sure he knows comes from a place of irritation. “It’s actually a proven fact that woman have a higher pain tolerance than men. But no, where I come from, bullet wounds aren’t exactly something I needed to worry about.” Sure, I’ve lived in the Commonwealth long enough to know that pain is unavoidable. And after the accident in Bunker Hill, I know the very definition of the word. But it still doesn’t change the fact that a bullet hole in the shoulder is fucking painful. I don’t care how much of a badass you think you are.  
           I lift my head and pour a bit of vodka onto the pliers Gage has brought, and he’s gracious enough to wait for me to pull it out of my arm before continuing on with his sales pitch. “So what do you say?” he asks after he’s finished speaking.  
           I scoff. “Sure. So are you just gonna paint a giant bullseye on my back now or what?”  
           He laughs. “I ain’t gonna lie. It’s part of the reason you won’t see me stepping up and running things.”  
           “Sorry, pal. I don’t want the job. I’ve got enough problems to worry about back home.”  
           Gage isn’t amused, though it doesn’t seem he’s willing to give up just yet. “Look, I know this sounds crazy. But I think you’re exactly the type of person we need to get this shit back on track. And I’m not gonna lie…” he says now, his face falling into a disappointed stare. A cold stare that replaces the warm, welcoming one he’s been giving me since meeting me face to face.      “You leave now, and it’s not gonna blow over so well.”  
           I detract my gaze from my bullet wound and focus on him. “Are you threatening me?”  
           “No, boss. I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.”  
           “Look, I’ve heard about you. Leader of the Minutemen, ain’t ya? And some hotshot with the Brotherhood of Steel…”  
           “Don’t….” I snap, silencing him. “Don’t ever say that name around me again.”  
           “My point is, you’ve got experience in this sort of thing. Being in charge of something bigger than yourself. These gangs, they’re gettin’ real antsy. They’re about ready to up and kill each other. But if we clear out the rest of the park—give them more territory and more room to expand, well then, all our problems would be solved.”  
           I sigh and run my hands over my face. I’m exhausted, ready to crawl into bed and sleep for days. And I just want to go home and talk to Macready. Get his opinion on the matter. But Gage’s words about me leaving not blowing over so well bounce around in my mind. So I do my best to consider his proposition. “I need some time to think about all this.”  
           “You fucking with me?” he asks, and I shoot him a pointed glare. “All right, boss. I’ll do what I can to smooth over the gangs. But don’t leave me hanging here,” he says while standing.  
           “So…how do I get out of here?”  
           He stops and stares down at me. “I don’t know why you’d have to leave. Got everything you need right here.”  
           I groan. “Gage, I’m tired. I just want to go home and sleep and…think about all of this.”  
           “Your bed’s over there.” He says while tipping his head to the corner of the room. “But I can’t let you leave, boss. Not until I trust you’ll come back.” His words are unnerving, because at this point, the only thing I’m missing is a slave collar. “You leave now, all this is gonna blow back on me. And I just can’t have that.”  
           “You expect me to sleep here? In a town full of raiders that want me dead.”  
           “They don’t want you dead. Not yet at least.”  
           Gage leaves me after that, but I remain sitting at the bar for a long while, contemplating the situation that’s been thrust upon me. Sure, I want to leave. But I’m not entirely convinced that if I wander out into the open, someone won’t put a bullet in my head. And then there’s the lingering thought that everything will “blow back” on Gage if I leave. I know I should give two shits when it comes to him—a raider. But after he went out of his way to help me survive the gauntlet, I’m not too keen on the idea of sending him to his grave. Not yet, at least.  
           I inject myself with a stimpack before crawling into the new queen-sized bed that is mine. But I can’t sleep that day. Or that night, really. My senses, they’re on high alert. And my mind is polluted, plagued with everything that’s been thrown at me in the past few hours. The leader of the raiders—never something I would have considered before.  
           But what Gage said about liberating the park remains forefront in my mind. Three formidable raider gangs, stuck to the confines of Nuka-World doesn’t sound half bad. And though they would be free to enter the Commonwealth whenever they chose, the idea that the gangs would have more space, more opportunities live life the way they saw fit without having to cause destruction and mayhem throughout the Commonwealth would help me sleep better at night.  
           With the entirety of Nuka-World being in their possession, traders coming and going—I just don’t see why they’d even bother with the Commonwealth. And as the General of the Minutemen, it seemed like the perfect decision in my mind.  
           Sure, Preston would never agree to such things, but I don’t need to tell him. If I agree to help Gage clear out the rest of the parks, make the raiders happy, then when I return to Sanctuary Hills, I can just inform him that the raiders would no longer be a problem.


	6. Blood, Money, Power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett agrees to meet the leaders of the gangs and Gage accompanies her.*

           I manage to get a few hours of sleep that night. When I awake, the sun is shining in through the open space that is my living arrangements. Immediately, I check the wound on my shoulder, and thanks to the stimpack I took before retiring to bed, it looks like it’s already healing quite nicely.  
           I dress myself and go through my morning ablutions—the caliber of which have been greatly compromised since the apocalypse. I’ve been reduced to brushing my teeth with fruit leather and rubbing sage along my body to rid me of the odors that occur when bathing only once every couple weeks.  
           I’m curious about what’s expected of me at this time. About how to get in touch with Gage. I look to the double doors where he disappeared to the previous night and knock, but no response comes. I open one of the doors. “Gage?” I call, but there’s no answer.  
           A long corridor is revealed though, and in a room ahead, I hear the sound of the announcer’s voice. The same announcer from the gauntlet…though it still sounds broadcasted. I walk down the hallway and enter a rather large room—one devoid of any windows or natural light—the only thing illuminating the space being a few fires built in metal trash cans. As if that weren’t a fire hazard.  
           “Gage?” I call, but no response.  
           A power armor station sits proudly at the top of a few steps. I see a vacant bed at the side of the room as well. Someone sleeps here, I think to myself. But whoever it might be, they’re gone now. I sigh and turn my attention to a long table in the middle of the room. On the table, a terminal with flashing green words that read Overboss’ Terminal. And I become intrigued.  
Techinically, I am the new Overboss.  
           I pull up a chair and postion myself in front of the terminal before hitting the enter key. A to-do list pops up. This could be helpful. But upon opening the tab, I see that the only things Overboss Colter had planned was shaking down the traders, checking on power armor, making fun of…Mason (whoever that is), and counting caps.  
           “You really were a piece of shit,” I mutter before exiting out of the to-do list. But something else catches my eye. Messages from Gage.  
           I glance around the room to make sure I’m really alone before clicking on the first message. A congratulatory message for getting in to Nuka-World, but it doesn’t take long before Gage’s messages become intrusive. Pestering Colter about getting shit done, saying the gangs are getting antsy about the rest of the park. It’s in these messages that it’s revealed the gang the Disciples are the cause of the gauntlet, and I already hate them. But even worse, Gage chastised Colter for even creating the thing when he felt they had bigger fish to fry.  
           My heart goes out to Gage. Judging by his messages, Gage is passionate. Focused on the good of the gangs. A good leader by the way he spoke, but for whatever reason had no desire to take charge. Toward the end of the messages, Gage encouraged Coulter to host a meeting, but it seems he didn’t.  
           But the strangest of them all is after all that pestering, Gage’s last message reads “All Good,” and he explains how he’s spoken with the gangs and worked everything out. He tells Colter the gauntlet has been improved. To have fun. And then he says goodbye.  
           I check the date. Sent yesterday.  
           A cold chill shoots up my spine. “Freaking Judas.” Though I don’t blame him. And actually, I feel somewhat bad for him. Gage with all his good intentions for his raiders, and the Overboss failed him. The desperation I sensed in his eyes upon our first meeting suddenly makes so much more sense.  
           I exit the terminal after that and make my way back into my portion of the restaurant, but as I enter, the lift coming to a stop carrying none other than Gage causes me to freeze. And though I expect him to be annoyed that I was in his area, Gage only smirks at me.  
           “Hey boss. Glad to see you’re finally up.”  
           “Stop calling me that,” I grumble. I’ve grown annoyed at the titles the Commonwealth has bestowed upon me. General, Paladin, Agent. Mom. Hell, the only people to call me by name anymore is Macready and Hancock.  
           Well, I guess just Macready now.  
           “What should I call you then?”  
           “Scarlett,” I say while crossing the room to greet him as he steps off the elevator. I become anxious in this moment though, because what he’s asked of me…it’s a big responsibility. And I just can’t fathom going down like Colter did. Like Jesus or…Julius Caesar, exclaiming Y tu, Brute as he shoves a knife in my back. “I have a question,” I say.  
           “All right. Shoot.”  
           “What…what happens after we take over the parks?”  
           Gage studies me for a moment. “Nothing you don’t want to happen. But look, I don’t want you thinking that far ahead, filling you conscience with nonsense. Let’s just take it one step at a time, okay?” he says, and the way he says okay kind of throws me off. HE throws me off because he has a way of speaking that just confounds me.  
           One moment, he’s passionate, angry, cursing. The next, he’s thoughtful, encouraging. Something in his tone of voice makes me feel…comforted? And that bothers me even more. Because I never would have expected such a strong, intellectual, persuasive personality from a raider. “Look, boss…”  
           “Scarlett…”  
           “Scarlett. I promise you, this can work. If you just give it a chance. I know you’re what we need to get things back on track. I swear, it’ll be worth it,” he says, desperation in his voice. Desperation and kindness. What the hell kind of raider is standing before me? A scared one, it seems, but one that’s smarter than most.  
           I can’t lie—this raider pulls at my heart strings, and for some reason, I find myself wanting to help him more than a lot of settlement leaders I’ve come in contact with. Because I owe him for saving my life. Because he desperately needs me—the proof being in the pudding. He wouldn’t ask me, a non-raider, if he wasn’t desperate. And then, the over arcing reason being that if I help these raiders get a little piece of paradise, then they’ll leave the Commonwealth be.  
           But saying it proves to be difficult.  
           “I don’t know, Gage. This…raider lifestyle? It’s…completely different than anything I’ve ever done before.”  
           “I hear you. But before you make a decision that very well might turn out to be bad for both of us, I’d like you to meet with the leaders of the gangs. You never know. You might be able to find some common ground with a few of ‘em. And think of it this way…so long as they’re holed up here in Nuka-World, they’re not gonna be out there in the Commonwealth. So maybe…I dunno, use that as your motivation.”  
           It’s the least I can do. “Okay, I’ll meet with them.”  
           “Well, all right. That’s what I like to hear. You just gotta get ‘em on your side. Get them excited about your plans for Nuka-World. Amp ‘em up a bit…”  
           I remember what I read on Gage’s terminal. The words he speaks, almost verbatim from what he wrote to the previous Overboss. I hold my hand up to silence him. “Yeah, I get it. Don’t worry, I’m a master at this sort of thing.”  
           “That so? Well just remember, you need them supporting you. You don’t have to trust them. You don’t even have to like them. But you need them to respect you.”  
           “Don’t sweat it. Everyone likes me.”  
           “Yeah…I wouldn’t count on that,” he grumbles. “But they’re expecting you. Just…don’t screw this up, all right?”  
           “Wait, you’re not coming?” I ask.  
           “No, boss…”  
           “Scarlett…”  
           “You gotta do this on your own. If I go with you, they’re just gonna think I’m stickin’ my hand up your ass, forcing you to say whatever I want.”  
           I can’t contain a laugh, and Gage smirks. But I force myself back into serious mode. Because this is a very serious matter. “Yeah, I’m not about to go waltzing around a town full of raiders by myself. Especially after I killed their Overboss.”  
           “What, you scared?” he jokes.  
           “I’m not scared of a fucking raider. There are much more…formidable opponents lurking in every shadow and every crevice in the wasteland. You guys, you’re human. A bullet to the head usually does the trick.”  
           “So what’s the problem?”  
           I can’t quite put my finger on it, really. But I know that going at it alone is a bad idea. Maybe it’s about being taken seriously. Or maybe this will just go a lot faster with Gage accompanying me. Or maybe I know I’ll be on better behavior if he’s accompanying me. “It’s…the polite thing to do. Look, you don’t have to come in and meet the bosses with me. Just…escort me around. Show me what’s what.” He opens his mouth to speak, but I continue. “I mean, it’s not like I have any clue where I’m going.”  
           Gage relents and the two of us leave our quarters to make our way to the first stop on our tour around the park. While going down the makeshift elevator though, Gage’s curiosity gets the best of him. “Hey boss, I gotta ask. What’s with the eyes?”  
           His inquiry warrants and offended, taken-aback sort of chuckle out of me. “The eyes?” I ask. I scoff before fixating both of my hands on the railing of the lift. “Looks like manners are wasted on all raiders.”  
           “It’s just…they’re kinda freakin’ me out.”  
           “You’re one to talk, cyclops.”  
           Gage chuckles. A booming sound from the core of him, and I can’t help but smirk at his reaction because…it’s not what I expected. “Seriously, though, what happened?”  
I groan. “Why does it matter?” I ask as the lift comes to a stop on ground level. I take a step off and Gage follows behind.  
           “Just curious. Wantin’ to know if this is gonna be a problem for you.”  
           We walk slowly, and I become oblivious to the other raiders walking around us as Gage stays a few paces behind me. Truth be told, I’m too focused on his prying to even notice the cold stares from the passing raiders.  
           All right, I notice them a little. “Problem for me?” I ask Gage.  
          “Stop getting so offended,” he barks, and I turn to face him. “I’m only askin’ because you’re the boss now. I need to know about your…”  
           “Weaknesses?”  
           He shrugs. “If you’d even call it that.”  
           I consider for a moment. Sure, I understand where he’s coming from. But do I trust him enough to tell him my weaknesses? Although…my eyes are hardly a weakness. More like a minor inconvenience in the scorching heat or freezing cold. “All right,” I begin. “I was passing through Bunker Hill with a companion of mine a few months ago. Four or five…anyway, doesn’t matter. I had some business to…tie up with one of the caravaners. After the meet-up, I was making my way out of town, and this woman comes up to me. Before I can even get a word out, she throws this…sort of acidic concoction into my face. Burned the hell out of my eyes.”  
           “Jesus, boss. Why’d she go and do that?” Gage asks.  
           I shrug. “I still don’t know. No one recognized her. No one could place her. Or maybe they could and they just didn’t want to say. But it was…the most painful thing I ever experienced. I remember screaming, and…I immediately lost all orientation. I wanted to shoot her, but everything was black. And the burning, it didn’t stop. It felt like my eyes melted from my skull. Lucky for me, I had a good friend by my side.” I remember Hancock. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him, and I could feel him, clinging on to me. And then there was a gunshot. “Hancock, he put the woman down. Arranged for me to be transported to Diamond City to have surgery. And, it was quick enough that the Doc out there managed to save my eyesight despite the acid all but dissipating the chroma. What you’re seeing, it’s just faded pigmentation.”  
           “So you can see fine?”  
           I nod. “Yeah…I get headaches in extreme temperatures, and…I’m probably not the most effective long-range shooter, but I was never one for that style anyway. Now, I’m hoping you’re done with the interrogation?”  
           “For now. The leaders are waiting on us, so we should get a move on.”  
           Gage escorts me to the hub of The Disciple operations, conveniently located right next door to the Overboss’ quarters. It does nothing for my nerves—having this ragtag bunch of reprobates so close to “home.” Especially since reading on Gage’s terminal that The Disciples are the ones who created the gauntlet.  
I don’t have very high expectations for this gang, to be honest. But Gage said it himself, I don’t have to trust them or like them. “Nisha can be a bit intense for those who don’t know her. But you’ll do fine. They won’t stage a coup so early on. They’ll wanna see what you have in store before all that.”  
           “Oh, that’s…so comforting.”  
           Gage chuckles. “Yeah. Thought that might be some reassurance for you. Now go on, get in there. I’ll be out here when you’re done.”  
           I leave Gage and approach the entrance to The Disciples’ headquarters where a member of the gang hangs out and stands watch, rifle in hand. “Watch yourself ‘boss,’ because we sure will be,” the guard says as I approach.  
           I choose to ignore her warning and enter the threshold. Inside, nothing I wasn’t expecting. The sort of dump I’d expect any two-bit raider gang to hole up in the Commonwealth. A cave, of sorts, no doubt due to a cave-in after the bombs hit.  
           But after entering a getting a good look at the main entrance area, I can already tell that I won’t have the stomach for this business. The “Overboss” of the raiders, I assume, needs to be on board with the sort of shit show of macabre present in the dwelling space of The Disciples, but the smell alone is akin to that of the gauntlet. And it’s no wonder.  
           Spiked poles with severed heads attached make me want to run for the door. Or better yet, put them all out of their sick, twisted, psychopathic tendencies.  
           The blood from their victims…it covers the dirt floor inside their base. I do my best to keep the involuntary muscle spasms in my stomach at bay. Vomiting in front of a gang of raiders, it doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in me as boss.  
           Though after witnessing the way in which these raiders choose to live, I think I just might turn down the job after all and have the Minutemen swarm the area, putting down every beast they come across. “Come on, girl, you know we should run this place. Not some lil greenie Gage dragged in,” a thick, southern accent says—grabbing my attention from the people in cages to my right.  
           “We’re giving him a second chance. Gage screws this up, he knows we’ll skin him alive. So shut up and be patient.”  
           I focus my attention on a group of three, and it becomes all too obvious which one is Nisha—the leader of The Disciples. And while I do like the idea of eavesdropping to hear everything they wish to say about me, I hate to stay there long than I have to. So I approach them. “Both of you just get out of here,” Nisha says. “And make sure the others get the message.”  
           I notice something about The Disciples that I don’t much care for. They all hide their faces. It’s eerie, being in a room of faceless freaks. Once the other two Disciples leave, Nisha focuses her attention on me. At least, I think she does. I can’t see her eyes through her strange mask.  
           “So, you’re Gage’s little pet project.”  
           And the insults go flying not even a minute into the conversation. “And what are you? His grandma?”  
           “Heh. If I was, I would’ve slit that little suckup’s throat a long time ago. Gage will never be one of us. He’s a failure. He’s lucky we’re giving him a second chance.”  
           Yikes. “Jeez, lady, tell me how you really feel.”  
           “Everyone knows we wanted Colter dead. ‘Course if I had my way, it would have been a slow, painful process. But whatever. Let’s get this meet and greet over with. I’m Nisha. I lead The Disciples. We’ve only got one rule around here, and that’s keeping the peace of this…alliance.”  
           “So…you’re responsible for the gauntlet,” I say, unimpressed.  
           “Colter’s idea, but we…improved upon it.”  
           “How so?”  
           “It was total shit at first. No imagination, but we spiced it up a bit.”  
           I laugh. “You call that a gauntlet? It was a fucking cake walk.” Absolute bullshit, but I get the feeling this woman needs her ego deflated. And while I have every intention of shutting down the damn gauntlet if I do accept this “Overboss” position, I don’t feel the need to tell Nisha that. Not yet, at least.  
           “Do cake walks end in death? Because if Gage hadn’t helped your ass, you’d be dead right now.”  
           I smirk, but I’m far from entertained. “Well, you got me there. How many lives have been lost to this…gauntlet?”  
           She sighs, disinterested. “Who’s counting? With all the traders that go in there, it’s hard to say.”  
           “You send the traders in there?”  
           She smiles, a devious smile. “Someone has to clean out the bodies when they get particularly…ripe. Though not all of them make it out alive. The gauntlet never sleeps.”  
I feel my stomach turn again. “I feel as though your efforts would be best suited somewhere else. Like helping to clear the rest of the park.”  
           “Not my job, boss. It’s yours. Let’s just hope Gage is right about you. He made a lot of promises to get us here, and never followed through.”  
           “I think your anger is misplaced. If you’ve ever worked for someone like Colter, then you know as good as anyone that it doesn’t matter what you do. Shit only gets done if the boss wants it to get done.”  
           “Not even here for a day and you’re already defending Gage. That won’t win you over any friends around here, ‘boss.’ And just so we’re clear, you better not screw this up. Because I’m not about to tolerate another round of bullshit. You fuck this up, and I will kill you. Though I have to admit, I have something even better in store for Gage.”  
           I hold my hand up to her. “I don’t even want to know. But I trust we’re done here?” I can’t be in this woman’s presence for another second.  
           “Your call, boss. Just remember what I said when it comes to backing someone. The Disciples don’t make empty threats.”  
           “Your presentation leaves something to be desired, Nisha. We’ll talk more later,” I say and then excuse myself from her presence.  
           When I exit the mountain, I feel as though I can’t get enough fresh air into my lungs. The exchange hardly went as planned, and I suddenly feel very conflicted about what needs to be done. On the one hand, I know I can’t back The Disciples. They’re cruel, sadistic. Violent for the sake of being violent, and it’s something I just can’t get behind.  
           I’ve never liked raiders. Taking whatever they want, whenever they want. But at Gage’s insistence, I at least try to find a bit of common ground. Normally, villains don’t know they’re villains. What they do, it makes perfect sense in their mind. Whether it’s to sustain their own life, to better the outcome of the world (even if by less than desirable means) there’s always an end goal. Like The Institute, for example. They had their reasons for doing what they did. And I can’t lie, their goal was admirable.  
           But Nisha and her Disciples have no purpose other than to cause harm and pain to the people around them. True psychopaths, and their end goal seems non-existent.  
           But the problem I’m facing is the threats they’ve made. I can handle a death threat from a raider. But Nisha’s insistence on Gage getting what she thinks he deserves just doesn’t sit well with me. Gage, who went out on a limb to help someone survive the gauntlet all to turn the lives of the raiders beneath him into something better. And even more than before, my heart goes out to him. Because now I see why he’s so desperate to have me stick around and help him make good on his promises.  
           He’s afraid they’ll kill him if I don’t.  
           “Everything go okay, boss?” Gage asks as I approach, that hopeful glimmer in his eye, and I hesitate to speak.  
           “Stop calling me that.”  
           “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.  
           “I, uh…there just seems to be a…conflict of interest between Nisha and I.”  
           “Oh yeah?” he asks, less than thrilled. “And what’s that?”  
           I shake my head. “Nothing to worry about. Yet. For now, she’s…like you said, she’s willing to see how this plays out.”  
           “She’s not gonna go and scare you off, right? I mean, I’m hoping you got a stronger stomach than that.”  
           I want to tell him. I want to tell him so bad the things that Nisha has in store for him, but it doesn’t help my position. Because if Gage knows the details of what’s in store for him if I can’t turn this around, he’ll never let me leave. “No, I’m not…scared, I’m just…thinking. But we better go meet with the other leaders first.”  
           “Sure thing, boss.”  
           Gage escorts me through Nuka-Town, and it seems The Disciples are becoming more scarce the further we walk toward the market. Now, I see raiders dressed in nice suits—armored, of course—but they seem put together. Hair done. Their dialogue seeming much more sophisticated and hardly any talk about gore and violence.  
           “This is The Parlor. The hub of operations for The Operators,” Gage says while stopping outside of what looks like an old bar and restaurant. “They’re run by Mags Black. And I get the feeling you’ll enjoy this interaction more than your first.”  
           “Here’s hoping,” I grumble while approaching the door.  
           Once again, a raider stands guard at the door. “You can head on in, Overboss,” he says, and I’m somewhat put-off by his civility.  
I enter The Parlor. Once again, the sort of place I’d expect to see a bunch of raiders holed up, the only difference being the sort of raiders that exist inside. All dressed nice—well, as nice as the apocalypse allows—and from what I can hear, no talk of torture and murder. There is no blood on the ground. No dead bodies on display, and in the distance, the sound of smooth jazz is playing.  
           The environment is comparable to a speakeasy, and I become somewhat hopeful for the interaction in which I’m about to have with the leader of The Operators.  
           I enter a doorway and find myself in a sizeable restaurant looking area with a stage. A man and woman stand on the stage, discussing something. And even more than the raiders surrounding me, the couple seem pretty well taken care of and put together. Clean, surprisingly, and with shockingly nice hair.  
           The woman, a disinterested looking blonde, I assume to be Mags. I approach the two, and their conversation dies away as the focus on me. “Overboss,” the woman says before I can even get a word out. “I suppose we all owe you for putting down Colter.”  
           “Man was an idiot. Made us all look bad,” the man next to her says.  
           “A clown, stuck in his own little car,” she says to the man, and I somewhat enjoy the banter between the two. They seem…close. And it’s the closeness between to individuals that really put me at ease. It’s a sign of humanity, being close with someone else. Even if they are fucking raiders.  
           Nisha, I don’t expect, is close with anyone.  
           “I guess we can take some solace in the fact that someone finally gave him what he deserved,” she says while focusing back on me. “I want to know. What did you feel as you did it? When you brought that human walking pile of garbage to his knees.”  
           Ah, there it is. The raider, coming out to play. Though I can’t lie to her. I didn’t know Colter, but him being the boss of the raiders, a cheat, and his insistence to…decorate the walls with my “lovely brains,” I can’t pretend I didn’t enjoy winning that fight. “Taking down an opponent like that? It’s thrilling.”  
           “Sure looked it,” the man says, but Mags continues to study me.  
           “Hm. Maybe you’re better suited to this than I thought. Regardless, Gage’s decree means that you’re the new Overboss. I suppose we can only hope that you work out better than the last one. I’m Mags, and this is my brother, William.”  
           “Pleasure,” William says, and I already kind of like this duo. They’re polite, and so far, from what I can tell, not completely off their rocker.  
           “Along with our co-conspirator Lizzie, we run this crew. Call ourselves the Operators. You’ll quickly learn that we are the only crew you should be backing around here. Because we’re the only ones who see this place for what it is. A temple. A testament to the only thing that matters in the world.”  
           “Uh…soda?”  
           William chuckles. “Not quite.”  
           “Caps,” Mags says, and I become intrigued. Sure, the desire for money isn’t exactly on the list of “good intentions” but I never expected anything particularly “good” coming from raiders. And even though the Operators don’t seem above violence what with their dialogue about wanting Colter dead and needing to know the gritty details of the “put down,” it seems that the most important thing on their mind is making money.  
           And I can’t fault them for that. In fact, their hospitality and the way they choose to go about things, I find to be quite refreshing. Not at all what I expected after the fucked up interaction with Nisha. No death threats or even a harsh utterance about Gage came from Mags or William, and while leaving the parlor, I felt somewhat flattered that they seemed all too willing to give me a shot at this Overboss thing.  
           If I even choose to accept the position.  
           “How’d it go?” Gage asks when I exit The Parlor.  
           “Strangely well. I quite like Mags. And I think the two of us might be able to find some of that common ground you were talking about.”  
           “Well, all right, that’s what I like to hear,” Gage says. “Come on. We got one more stop to make on our little tour.”  
           As we approach the market, Gage makes a hard right and begins approaching the Bradberton Amphitheater. And I can’t help but notice the stylish raiders known as the Operators are hardly in sight anymore.  
           No, now all I see are traders and raiders walking around wearing animal masks and some kind of primitive armor. The most intriguing thing about these raiders, though, is the fact that they’re all wearing or painted in brightly colored clothing. Pastel colors, neons. Hell, even their guns are hard to miss.  
I smirk. “Who are these guys?”  
           “Members of the Pack.”  
           “I like their outfits. Though I’m sure it does shit for camouflage.”  
           “I don’t think they much care for all that. And I’m hoping you’re paying attention to more than just their clothes,” Gage mutters as we approach the gate to the amphitheater where another guard is on duty.  
           “Overboss. Mason’s been waiting for you,” the guard says.  
           I smile politely and give the guard a nod, but before I enter, I notice Gage is quick on my heels. “I think I might accompany you inside this time. If that’s all right with you, boss.”  
           I become curious. “Why? What’s inside.”  
           “Nah, nothin’. Just might be better. I don’t think Mason’s ever had to take orders from a woman before.”  
           Oh great. One of those. “You’re scaring me.”  
           Gage chuckles. “You scare easily. It ain’t gonna be that bad. He just might take you more seriously if you’ve got some manpower behind you.”  
           “If you think it’s best.”  
           “Yeah, I do.”  
           I push the door open and enter the amphitheater. Immediately, I know why they are known as the Pack. It smells like dog shit and wet mongrel inside, which probably explains why they settled in to an area of the park that’s a bit more…airy. And despite the smell, I quite enjoy the look of the nest. Twinkle lights strung up, dogs walking around like they own the place.  
But a cage dead ahead of Gage and I grabs my attention. Inside, two dogs fight it out to see who will come up on top. I don’t particularly enjoy seeing this, but it’s better than the severed heads and blood soaked grounds of the Disciples’ lair.  
           We round the cage, and I continually watch the dog fight. Hoping that it might have a peaceful outcome, though it seems to be wishful thinking. And only when we near a couple steps leading up to a stage, do I focus on our target.  
           “Hey boss. Been wondering when you’d make your way out here,” a large man says from his throne, and immediately, I want to leave.  
           “Ho…” I gasp and turn to walk away, but Gage pushes me forward. “Dude’s built like a super mutant,” I mutter.  
           “He’ll never respect you if you let him intimidate you,” Gage mutters and ushers me up the steps, closer to the giant behemoth I’m supposed to win over with my sparkling wit and personality.  
           But words fail me. This orange haired giant with his face painted like some aboriginal chief leaves me wondering how the hell to even begin to win him over. Sure, I’ve dealt with big men before. Elder Maxson, for example, wasn’t a small guy. But he also wasn’t a raider, and this man—Mason—based on his stature alone looks like the king of raiders.  
           “What’s the matter, boss? Cat got you tongue?”  
           A nervous laugh escapes me. “No, I just…you’re…you’re huge.”  
           Mason chuckles. “You have no idea.”  
           I’m stunned, but I can’t contain a snicker. And I can tell by the look on his face that he’s fucking with me. “Oh my god…” I laugh.  
           “All right, all right, that’s enough,” Gage says, his booming voice snapping me back into reality. “Show some respect, Mason. She is the Overboss.”  
           “Yeah, well she don’t look like much.”  
           “I’ll send you my references and resume.”  
           “What the fuck’s a resume?” he responds, and I have to admit, I’m quite enjoying our banter. Mason, he’s entertaining. And I’m not sure if its him necessarily, or his bright orange hair and furry pants. “Doesn’t matter. Name’s Mason. The pack alpha. And this is our side of town. You might be Overboss—for now. But I’m the boss of the Pack. And it’s going to stay that way.”  
           “You don’t want to be Overboss?” I ask.  
           “Sure, if I thought the other gangs would go along with it,” he says. “I’d run this place in a heartbeat. But after what went down with Colter, it seems they all want to try a new approach. Apparently being big and tough just ain’t gonna cut it anymore.”  
           “Did it ever?” I ask. Because even with Elder Maxson being big and tough, at least he had the smarts and know-how to run the Brotherhood. An expert at strategy. Something I can’t help but feel Colter and Mason might be lacking.  
           “Sure, once upon a time.” Mason studies me for a moment. “Well, you might not look like much in the ways of Overboss, but I can see why Gage picked you over all the others.”  
           “Picked me, huh? And why’s that?”  
           “Well, you ain’t so hard on the eyes, so that’s a start.”  
           “That ain’t got nothin’ to do with it,” Gage interrupts, but I hardly pay him any mind.  
           “Other than that, Gage feels this little operation could use…a woman’s touch. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to see how you plan on running the place.” Mason stands. And I thought he couldn’t be any bigger. “You gonna do right by the Pack?”  
           “You’ll get your share,” I say.  
           “Then we ain’t gonna have any problems here, boss.” I force a smile and nod to Mason before turning to leave. “And hey, boss…” he calls, pulling me back into conversation. “You ever need someone to help take care of your…needs…you know where to find me.” Again, I’m certain he’s fucking with me. A way to undermine me as a woman, and I’m very familiar with this sort of behavior.  
           “All right, Mason, that’s enough,” Gage says.  
           I shake my head. “No, I’m married. Thanks though.”  
           Mason’s eyes become wide and a laugh escapes him. “You hear that, Gage? Your new Overboss is married. Now if that don’t put a damper on your plans…”  
           “What’s that?” I ask, desperately needing clarification. Because judging by the look on their faces, something I know nothing about is happening. I look to Gage. “What’s he talking about?”  
           “I dunno, boss,” Gage says, rather convincingly too.  
           I look back to Mason. “Eh, I didn’t mean nothing by it. Just that, most raiders don’t have it in them to settle down. And it sounds like you already have. But this lifestyle don’t exactly accommodate families. Don’t exactly accommodate any sort of comfort. Is that what you plan on doing? Getting comfortable?”  
           “Here? Absolutely not.”  
           Mason seems skeptical as he glances to Gage. “I’m not so sure we’re really on the same page here, boss. But I guess I’ll wait and see how this all plays out.”  
           

           The Pack leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And while I have nothing against Mason other than the fact that he’s a raider, it’s not his intentions that make my stomach turn. Not like Nisha. But it’s what he said. And though I feel it might behoove me to make clear that my husband is dead and has been for over two-hundred years, I can’t bring myself to explain something like that to a bunch of raiders.  
           Not even to Gage, who, other than his unfailing loyalty to his kind, really doesn’t seem to possess any of the qualities of your typical raider. I’m intrigued by him, but far from trusting him. And mention of some sort of “plan” from Mason has me questioning whether or not I even want to go all in with Gage.  
           But in the back of my mind, an annoying voice beckons me to accept the position of Overboss. Something telling me that securing the park for them is the Commonwealth’s best chance at a life without them pillaging and raping settlements throughout. And then the lingering thought that something unspeakable might be done to Gage if I do leave.  
           Nisha’s warning bangs around in my mind, making it all the more difficult for me to turn down the position. Because if Gage is being honest with me, then I just sentenced him to death by my decision to leave. My actions, they’ll end up killing the one person who showed me a bit of kindness without even knowing my name—helping me survive the gauntlet and Colter. I’m in debt to him, as much as I hate to admit to such things.  
           Gage leaves me alone for the rest of the afternoon to think over everything—much to his dismay. Though I’m not exactly sure what he expected from me. My constant reminder that I’m not a raider nor do I have any desire to be, I figured, would be reason enough to give me some time to think about the decision.  
           But by the time the sun goes down, Gage returns to my quarters. And more than I’ve seen him yet, he seems stressed. Discontent by the amount of time I’m taking to decide whether or not I’ll accept his proposition, or hang him out to dry.  
           “We gotta make moves, boss. What’s it gonna be?” he asks.  
           I sit in one of the armchairs facing outward to Nuka-World, lost in thought. But I can’t ponder anymore. It’s time to make a decision. “Take a seat. We need to talk about some things,” I say.  
           “Well, I don’t much like the sound of that,” he grumbles while lowering himself into the armchair across from me.  
           I think for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to tell him what I’ve decided. “Look, Gage, I appreciate what you did for me. You took a big risk helping me out of the gauntlet. And I assume it’s because you had high hopes for what I could help you do for this place.” I watch him for a moment. The anticipation irritating him more and more—noticeable by his narrowed eye and tight lips. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll clear out the parks for you. Act as your…Overboss for now, but…when the parks are clear, you have to promise me that you’ll let me leave.”  
           “Leave?” he asks.  
           “Yes. I don’t want to be in charge of your raider gangs. I have more important things to worry about back in the Commonwealth. Now, I owe you, so I’m willing to do what you need me to do in order to liberate the parks. Help…ease the tension between gangs. But when that’s done, I’m gone. And you’ll have to appoint a new leader. Or assume the role yourself. Because when I’m gone, you’re in charge by proxy, yes?”  
           “Yeah. But I already told you, leading ain’t my style.”  
           “That’s not really my problem, is it?”  
           He sighs. “No, I suppose it’s not.”  
           We’re quiet for a moment. “This is my offer, Gage. Take it or leave it. Now, I have no delusions about how this might play out. If you decline, I leave. But I know there’s a good chance I won’t make it out the gates alive. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take you and a few others out on my way down.”  
           He exhales sharply. “Uh huh.”  
           “Whether you let me leave or you kill me for trying, either way, I’m gone. And you’re up shit creek without a paddle.”  
           “So what you’re saying is, I really got no say in the matter.”  
           “Accept or decline. That’s your say.” Gage doesn’t seem too thrilled about the offer. “Look, I’ll sweeten the pot a bit. On top of clearing the parks for you, I’ll stick around long enough until you find a replacement for me. Hell, I’ll even help you pick one out. Unless you find a bit of courage in yourself to lead.”  
           “It’s got nothing to do with courage. I ain’t afraid to take charge. But my talents are best suited to helping the guy in charge.” He’s quiet for a moment, considering my offer, I assume. “All right, boss. You clear the parks. Stick around long enough until we find a suitable replacement. And I’ll have no problems letting you leave here. If that’s what you really want to do.”  
           I smile and extend my hand to him. “Shake on it.”  
           He hesitates before outstretching his massive, calloused hand to mine. But I’ve backed him into a corner. And there’s not much he can do but accept my offer and close it with a handshake. “Time to roll up your sleeves, boss.”  
           “Scarlett.” I stand and move toward one of the windows facing the park. “You got a map of this place? And something to write with.”  
           Gage and I enter the next room where he sprawls out a map of Nuka-World and hands me a homemade looking marker. I lean over the table, studying the park and circling the points of interest. There are five parks that need to be cleared. Galactic Zone, Dry Rock Gulch, Safari Adventure, World of Refreshment, and Kiddie Kingdom.  
           “You’ll need to assign a gang to each park once they’ve been cleared. Plant a flag at each location, and it’s theirs.”  
           “A flag, huh?” I ask while scanning the map of the park. “There’s five of them…and three gangs. It doesn’t really add up,” I mutter.  
           Gage leans on the table next to me, distracting my gaze onto the map. “Someone’s feelings are gonna get hurt. There’s no getting around that. But you met with the gangs. It’ll be your job to decide who gets what.”  
           “Hmmm, I’m starting to see why you don’t like taking charge.”  
           “Tough decisions are gonna need to be made, boss. It comes with the territory.”  
           I know a thing or two about tough decisions, and I don’t need him telling me how they go down. Because to me, assigning gang territories—although not an ideal situation for a new Overboss—is one of the easiest decisions I’ve had to make since existing in the post-war Commonwealth.  
           I grab my marker and plant myself in a chair to move closer to the map, but my hand lingers over Galactic Zone. “Any idea what sort of hostiles reside in Galactic Zone?”  
           “Robots,” Gage says, his arms folded across his chest while still leaning on the table. “But I believe there’s a way to shut ‘em down once you reach the mainframe. You don’t necessarily have to go in guns blazing.” I glance at him. “I mean, your gun should be hot. You’ll have to use it eventually. But it should be the easiest of the parks.”  
           “Robots, I can handle.” I write the letters OP to the side of Galactic Zone and a notation about the mainframe and robots.  
           “What’s that?” Gage asks.  
           “Operator territory,” I mutter while moving my pen over to Dry Rock Gulch.  
           “Well, I’m sure they’ll appreciate that. Galactic Zone has a lot of valuable shit scattered around.”  
           “What’s hiding out at Dry Rock Gulch?” I ask.  
           “Blood worms,” his gruff voice responds.  
           I look at him, suspicious. That’s one I haven’t heard of yet. “Blood worms? What’s that?”  
           “Giant worms hell bent on sucking the blood right outta ya. But don’t let that intimidate you. They’re pretty easy to kill.”  
           I sigh. “Great. A bug infestation.” I write DIS to the side of Dry Rock Gulch with a notation about blood worms.  
           “They…like to hide under ground and jump out at you when you least expect it, so…just be prepared for that.”  
           “What about Safari Adventure?” I ask.  
           Gage shakes his head. “That one, we don’t know. Sent a few scouts out there to have a look, but they never came back. I can only assume that whatever’s hiding out there killed ‘em all off.”  
           “Hmmm...” I tap the pen on Safari Adventure before writing PCK to the side. “We’ll come back to that one. I’d like to start with the territories we know about. And maybe I can get a chance to scout it out at Rock Gulch.” On to the next. “World of Refreshment?”  
           “Couple of scouts saw some Mirelurks hangin’ ‘round. Nothing too serious, but…we don’t know how many and where they might all be hiding.” I write OP to the side of World of Refreshment with a notation about Mirelurks. Gage chuckles. “Well, I think it’ll become pretty obvious who you’re favoring.”  
           “Backing the Operators is a smart move. They have the most bodies, the most resources. And they’re reasonable. Not blood-thirsty and reckless like the damn Disciples.”  
           “Nisha and Mason aren’t going to be too happy about that,” he groans.  
           “Mason will be taken care of,” I say before writing PCK next to Kiddie Kingdom. “What are we dealing with here?”  
           “Well, I’m not exactly sure. Damn Geiger counters go crazy if anyone gets within a few feet of the entrance, so…could be anything.”  
           “Could be ferals. That’s easy enough.” I hear Gage laugh, and my curiosity gets the better of me. “What?” I ask.  
           “Look at you, boss. Already making moves and you’ve only been here for two days. You sure you want to leave us after all this is done?” he asks.  
           I snicker and toss the marker onto the table. “Maybe just wait and see how I do things before you go praising me.”  
           “Not praising. Just calling it like I see it,” he says. I stand to make my way back to my quarters, exhausted from the day I’ve had. “Hey boss…I appreciate you sticking around and getting this all done for us. And…I figure since you’re doing this, I might as well go all in. You want me out there watching your back, you just let me know.”  
           I consider. Might be easier with two people, though Gage’s skills are still a mystery to me. Of course, I can always send him on his way if he ends up getting in the way. And he certainly has some big shoes to fill. Macready is one of the best shots I’ve ever seen. “All right. Come along, if you want. You might learn a thing or two.”  
           “Oh, now this I gotta see.”  
           His comment forces a smirk out of me, and I turn to leave once again. But with Gage at my beck and call, I figure I can task him with something that’ll keep him occupied until I stock up on everything I need in order to begin clearing the parks. “I’d like to have a meeting with the gang leaders before we head out. Tomorrow evening would be best.”  
           “You got it, boss. Any ideas where you’d like to hold this meeting?”  
           I glance around the room. “Here is good. But we should…tidy up a bit,” I say as my eyes drift over empty liquor and beer bottles.  
           Gage chuckles. “Yeah, Colter was kind of a slob.”  
           “And here I thought you made this mess.”  
           “Nope. Don’t drink. Dulls the senses.”  
           I laugh. “Thus the basis of its appeal.”  
           But he doesn’t seem amused. “I’ll see that it gets done,” he says. “Night, boss.”  
           And with that, I leave him to do whatever it is that Gage does in his spare time.


	7. Leader by Proxy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett has a meeting with the gang leaders before heading out to clear the parks.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit long, I'm aware. But I had a hard time trying to find a place to break it up, so, yeah. Who says we need short chapters anyway?

           The next day, I spend my time preparing to head out early in the morning. I gather as much ammunition for my shotgun, pistol, and rifle as possible to carry as well as acquire a few grenades, stimpaks, Radway, purified water and a bit of food. After loading all my weapons with full mags, I stash the other supplies into a green backpack I found in the market. Further preparations need to be made in the morning right before heading out to Galactic Zone, but for all intents and purposes, I’m ready.  
           “Hey boss,” Gage says while poking his head through the door. “Gang leaders are here. Just waintin’ on you.”  
           “All right, I’ll be there in a minute.” Gage leaves me alone again, and I take a deep breath to try and calm my nerves and shaking hands.  
           I grip one of my palms and start massaging the area. This shakiness, I really need to get a handle on. People will start thinking I’m a nervous wreck—which might be true. Or it might be the recent trauma that happened at the Castle with the Brotherhood.  
           I enter the next room where Mason, Nisha, Mags, and William have made themselves comfortable at the long table in the middle, but the state of the room is what’s mostly distracting. It’s clean. Like, very clean. I glance to Gage as he pulls my chair out at the head of the table. “Nice work,” I say while sitting.  
           He moves behind me. And then he just stands there. I look over my shoulder at him, wondering what the hell he’s doing. “Something wrong, boss?”  
           “Sit down,” I say in a loud, confounded whisper. So weird. He goes to sit in a chair in the corner of the room, and I can’t help but smirk and roll my eyes. “On my right, Gage.”  
           Seems Colter may have made a habit of making him feel less important than he really is. But Gage does as he’s told and sits in the chair to my right. I grab the few scraps of paper and pencil Gage managed to scrounge up for me. “Can you write?” I ask while sliding him the paper and pencil.  
           “Yeah, boss.”  
           “Take notes.” I focus my attention to the gang leaders, and none of them seem thrilled to be there. “So…I called this meeting because as some of you might have heard, I’ll be heading out to clear the parks tomorrow. Now, I don’t plan on staying out there unless absolutely necessary. But I’m sure I’ll have to double back a few times to restock.”  
           “There’s a lot of ground to cover,” Gage says.  
           “With that being said, I’m not going to be around very much to…run the show here. But I’ve come up with a list of things that I need you all to do for me while I’m gone. As a way to…keep your people busy. Give them a task to focus on until the parks have been cleared.”  
           “Great. Only been here three days and we already have a to-do list,” Mason gripes.  
           “Yes, you do. Now, I know that you have your own problems to worry about, but with me being gone, I won’t be of much help. And if we plan on reforming this place and helping it rise back to its former glory, I’ll need a bit of cooperation here.”  
           “Well, you won’t hear us complaining,” Mags says, and William nods in agreement.  
           “That’s good to know. There are three main things that require the attention of the raiders in this park. The first, the market. I’ll be tasking the Operators with all the responsibilities and operations therein. Basically, I want to know how many caps are coming in and going out of this place. But that also means inventory is something you’re gonna need to make a priority. This park can be a well-oiled machine. A veritable means to sustain life without relying on too many outside settlements, so long as we can get the logistics down.”  
           Mags and William smile at each other. “You got it, Boss,” William says.  
           “Next, the Pack…Mason, I’ll need you and yours to head up the security of this place. With the radio beacon starting to be picked up by nearby settlements, I think it’s only necessary that we have constant supervision of who’s coming and who’s going. We can’t have someone from the Brotherhood picking up on our location. Finding out that Nuka-World is up and running, because as much as I hate to admit it, if they set their sights on us, they’re gonna give us a run for our money.”  
           “Hey, ain’t you some big shot with the Brotherhood? Why we gotta worry about them coming to take what’s already yours?” Mason asks.  
           “That’s a long story that we don’t have the time to discuss. But let’s just say that my relations with the Brotherhood have been…compromised. So, yes. They are a threat. And so are the Minutemen.”  
           “Which you’re the General of,” Nisha snips.  
           “But I won’t be here to ease the situation if they come calling. I don’t suspect you’ll get any visits from the Minutemen, but in case you do, don’t take them lightly. They’re great fighters. They helped me take out the Institute, and…”  
           “I’m sorry, what was that?” Mags asks.  
           “Surely you’ve heard by now,” I say, but judging by the looks on all their faces, it seems they may have missed the memo. “The Institute is no more. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter…for now.” I feel Gage’s stare, but I avoid looking at him. “Just, do me a favor and don’t go opening fire on any of them if they come. In fact, the only people you should be killing first and asking questions later is the Brotherhood or any other raider pieces of shit that try and come take what’s ours.”  
           Mason nods. “All right.”  
           “Finally, the Disciples.” I force a smile at Nisha. “The gauntlet. I need you and your people to make it a fair run. That someone can actually make it through to the end without outside help.”  
           “You want me to ruin all the hard work my people put in to make it what it is today?”  
           “Look, if I had it my way, your people would be the ones tearing it down. But…” I glance at Gage. “As luck would have it, seems someone is on your side. Managed to make me see the good of the gauntlet. Weeding out the weak from the strong, and this place needs strong people. But with that, we need to change the admission criteria of the gauntlet. If everyone approaching Nuka-World has to run through the gauntlet, we’ll never make any money. And we’ll never get the supplies we need in order to sustain life way out here. Traders, for example, don’t need to be put into the gauntlet.”  
           “And how do you expect us to know who you want in the gauntlet and who you don’t? Or is it just left to our better judgement?” Nisha says with a devious grin.  
           I smirk. “Don’t you worry about all that. I’ve tasked Harvey—your little crier—with a set of guidelines to enforce. Rules and regulations for those who might be fit to enter the gauntlet. Oh, and by the way…from now on, you won’t be sending in the traders to clean up your mess. Your people built the gauntlet, you’ll have them dispose of the bodies. At least they know where everything is.”  
           “What a load of bullshit,” Nisha barks.  
           “Think of it as more of an audition than a means to kill anyone who approaches Nuka-World,” I say.  
           “An audition for what?” Mason asks.  
           “You’ll find out soon enough. Now, the last order of business. Since I will be mostly absent for the next…week or so, I’ll need to appoint someone to step in when I’m not in residence.”  
           “And let me guess, little Gage here is willing to step up and take on the burden?” Nisha says, unimpressed.  
           “Well, yes. By proxy, Gage is in command when I’m not here. But lucky for you, Nisha, he’s volunteered his services to me in clearing out the parks for all you fine people. So that means one of the gangs will have to take charge.” The room falls silent as they all anxiously await my decision. “The Operators will be acting on my behalf…”  
           “Oh, what the hell,” Mason groans.  
           “You can’t be serious,” Nisha says. “Why don’t you go ahead and spit in our faces while you’re at it. This isn’t going to blow over well, boss.”  
           “Everyone just…calm down. This isn’t an act of favoritism.”  
           “You sure about that, boss?” Mason challenges. “Because from where I’m sitting, it sure looks that way.”  
           “The only reason I decided on the Operators is because they are run by three people whereas your gangs only have you. And I don’t want to tie up all your time worrying about other aspects of the park when you should be focusing on your own people and the individual tasks I’ve given you.” Nisha and Mason aren’t pleased, as I knew they wouldn’t be.  
           “I think it’s a smart move, boss. It’s about time someone realizes that the Operators are really the only gang worth a shit in this hell hole,” Mags says.  
           “Okay, well…I love all of my children equally, but…fine. Take it how you want it. But Mason and Nisha, this doesn’t exempt you from being the leaders of your own gangs. And it’s your responsibility to keep them in line.”  
           “This is bullshit,” Mason mutters.  
           “Look, if you behave in the way that I expect you to…abide by the rules of this place, then you shouldn’t have any reason to even speak to each other, all right? Just…try not to kill each other when I’m gone.”  
           “Whatever you say, boss,” Mason says sharply before standing.  
           “You better know what the hell you’re doing,” Nisha says and follows Mason out of the room. Mags and William, they say nothing but give an approving nod before leaving Gage and I alone.  
           “I didn’t suspect that would blow over so well,” he says in his deep Southern accent.  
           I groan and roll my eyes. “Feel free to step in any time you want. Literally, any time you see fit, by all means. The job is yours,” I snap.  
           He laughs and stands with his scraps of paper in hand. “Nah, you got this.”

           The next morning, Gage and I are up before the sun has the opportunity to make an appearance. I strap my knife and pistol to my thighs as well as a few strands of ammo before slinging my green bag over my shoulders on top of my shotgun. My rifle, it needs to be easily accessible, so I keep it in my hands for now.  
           “Want me to carry that, boss?” Gage asks while we take the lift down to ground level, and I can’t help but notice how peaceful the park seems at this time of day. Only a few raiders in sight on guard duty, and darkness consumes us other than a few torches lit throughout the park, painting everything in a nice, warm glow.  
           “No, I can carry it. Not like you can carry anything on your back with that ridiculous armor,” I say while stepping off the lift.  
           “What’s wrong with my armor?”  
           “It’s a bit…boisterous.”  
           He chuckles. “Well, shit…I don’t know what that means, but it sounds all right.” I start leading the way to Galactic Zone, having to rely on my Pip-boy for light the further we get away from Nuka-Town. “At least I have armor,” Gage mutters when I figured the conversation had already dissipated.  
           “Hmm…maybe I’m just so good that I don’t need any,” I joke.  
           “Oh my god, you’re absolutely ridiculous.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Armor probably could have helped when Colter shot you in the shoulder,” he mutters.  
           “Ah, you got me. I was wondering if you’d bring that up.” Gage chuckles, but the further we get from Nuka-Town, the quieter we become, and I assume we’re on the same page as far as relying on sound in the darkness of the early morning.  
           By the time we reach the gates of Galactic World, the sky is turning bright blue—the sun having finally decided that now might be a good time to start being useful. I keep my rifle in my hands while walking through the gate. It’s quiet here. Too quiet, as Macready used to say. A sort of eeriness in the air. But other than the damage caused by nuclear fallout 200 years prior, nothing seems to be…unusual or dangerous.  
           I nudge Gage and then tilt my head to the right side of the entrance. He nods and heads for that direction while I start making my way along the left side. I walk slowly, peeking my head in to every nook and cranny I come across, but nothing seems to be lurking in the shadows. And by the time Gage and I meet up at the base of Starport Nuka, I’m left feeling bewildered.  
           “Mainframe’s in there,” Gage says while tilting his head toward the control center.  
           We enter the building, and again, nothing out of the ordinary. Just…silence and the slight hum from the enormous looking hub of operations. The mainframe, I assume. I cross the room and climb up a small set of steps. “Take a look around. See what you can find,” I say to Gage while lowering myself into a chair in front of the mainframe.  
           It has some power to it, I notice. But very little. And the only prompt I get from the terminal is to install more power—star cores. Something similar to a fusion core, I assume. The main source of energy in this wasteland. “Other than a few Nuka Colas, there ain’t nothin’ worth our time in here,” Gage mutters.  
           “The mainframe needs more power. More…star cores. Similar to fusion cores, yes?”  
           “I guess so,” he says.  
           “I wonder what happened to all the other star cores.”  
           Gage huffs. “Scavengers, probably.”  
           “But how’d they get past all the robots? I haven’t seen any robot scraps laying around,” I say while glancing at all the empty slots where star cores should be installed.  
           Gage laughs. “Yeah. Get passed _all_ the robots we’ve seen so far. Doesn’t seem likely.”  
           I turn to him, pacing back and forth behind me with his gun in his hands. “You’re the one who said there’d be robots.”  
           He shrugs. “Maybe they died. Not enough…star cores to power ‘em up.”  
           I can’t hide a smirk. But I focus my attention back on the mainframe. “Maybe I can just…reboot somehow. I mean, there might be a way to get a different prompt. Give us some direction in where to find some…” I say, more to myself than to Gage. But before I can even press any buttons, a robotic voice is heard fast approaching our location.  
           “Intruder alert. Intruder alert.”  
           “What’d you do?” Gage asks.  
           I hold my hands up and scoot away from the mainframe. “I didn’t do anything.”  
           “Hostiles located in the area. All law abiding citizens, please remain calm.”  
           I stand and join Gage at his side when two protectrons enter the control center. Before I can even reach for my pistol though, Gage fires two shots into both of them, killing their power completely. The sound rings in my ears despite me covering them with both hands.  
           “Nice job!” I yell. Gage mumbles something. “What?”  
           He turns to me and removes my hands from my ears. “Might be best to keep moving.”  
           Before we can though, a swarm of eyebots enter the room, immediately shooting off their bright little lasers at us. Gage takes off to the other side of the room while I jump behind one of the counter and grab my pistol from my belt. “Son of a bitch!” I yell when the contents on the counter explode around me as the eyebots shoot them.  
           Eyebots, they’re tricky. While one shot usually does the trick, the little fuckers fly around and are constantly moving and shooting. Moving and shooting, moving and shooting, and it makes it difficult to really focus on any of them. It takes about three attempts to take each one out, and after every shot, I have to take cover again.  
           I’ve only taken out two. And Gage, I’m not sure how many he’s taken, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Either they keep coming, or we suck at killing eyebots. I lean up onto the counter again and fire at one of them, missing completely. But the damn thing is quick to retaliate, clipping me right in the arm and sending me back behind my cover.  
           “Ah!” I shout and then wince. Damn fuckers burn like a son of a bitch. I go to reload my pistol, but Gage dropping behind the counter next to me, startles me. “Oh…hey, how’s it going?”  
           “They keep coming. We need to make a run for it.”  
           I laugh, but I’m far from entertained. “Look at us. Running from fucking eyebots.”  
           “Fuckers are hard to kill!” An understatement, really. Gage picks his head up a bit, but the eyebots are unrelenting. “All right…see that door over there? On the count of three, we’re gonna run for it.”  
           “And where exactly are we going?” More debris shoots around us, and I duck my head even further down.  
           “Uh…the vault-tec exhibit ain’t too far. We’ll head for that.”  
           I nod. “Okay.”  
           “One…two…”  
           “Oh my God, just go!” I yell, shoving him out from the counter, and the two of us make a run for it. I won’t lie—running from a swarm of eyebots isn’t my proudest moment. But the thing is, I’ve never had to take out a swarm of them before. And it’s really hard to do.  
           Gage and I run down the ramp leading to the vault-tec display, but—what looks like two Mister Gutsy’s—come flying out from around the corner, headed straight for the two of us. I raise my rifle to shoot, but before I can, they spit some kind of brown fluid all over us.  
           “Oh my…is that Nuka Cola?” Gage fires at them, but my Pip-boy’s Geiger counter starts going wild. “It’s not Nuka Cola!” Gage pushes me to the side, and we change course and start running for a different side of the park.  
           “The theater! Head for the theater!” he yells, and I lead the way, dodging eyebots and radiation spewing Mister Gutsy’s. I shoot when I can, but my main goal is getting to the theater and regrouping. Because after being ambushed by a bunch of fucking robots, regrouping is exactly what we need to do.  
           The two of us manage to avoid incoming attacks from the protectrons outside of the theater, and when we run inside, we slam the door shut behind us. But the sounds of the attacking robots hardly die down.  
           I back away from the door and start to scan the area in which we find ourselves. It’s dark inside, only lit with emergency lights from backup generators. It’s a good sign if I have any intentions of getting the mainframe up and running again.  
           Gage and I walk slowly down a long corridor, and when we come to the end, we peek inside of the theater room. Quite large, and I can hear the hum of machinery somewhere nearby. Not a turret, I don’t think. But perhaps a robot.  
           When I look to my side, I see that Gage is no longer beside me. “Gage?”  
           “Hey boss, come here a sec,” he calls from one of the restrooms across the corridor. I enter and see him standing over a corpse. “Remember those scavengers I mentioned?”  
           I investigate the body and see that he’s clinging to a small, fusion core looking thing. A star core, I presume. “Well it certainly is a start,” I say while kneeling down to grab the thing and place it in my bag. “We need about twenty of these to get the mainframe up and running. I should be able to shut down the robots that way.”  
           “And where do you suggest we start looking?” he asks. Like finding a needle in a haystack, I’m sure.  
           “I bet there’s more in here. Anywhere there’s power, there’s gotta be a star core. Let’s check the theater,” I say and lead the way out of the restroom.  
           We enter the theater space, and in the corner of the room, I see a control area where the faint glow of red, yellow, and green lights illuminate the darkened area. I nudge Gage and point it out to him. “Keep your eyes peeled,” I say and make my way to the control area with my rifle in my hands.  
           I’m skeptical of how quiet things are in the theater. And as my hands waver over the star core, I wonder if something bad might happen once removed. But I need it, and whatever happens, well…we’ll deal with it, I guess.  
           I grab the star core and pull it from the console, wincing as I do. But all I hear is the sound of machinery dying down in the distance. I exhale a sigh of relief, and even a laugh escapes me. Worrying for nothing.  
           “Warning, warning, warning…”  
           “Hey, boss?” Gage calls, but the sound of the robotic voice has already sent my heart into my throat. I look over my shoulder and see a sentry bot—a heavily modified one—making an appearance in the theater, and headed right for Gage.  
           “Aw, shit.” I drop the star core, my bag, and my rifle to grab the shotgun. A big machine like that needs a big weapon.  
           Gage has started firing at the thing, and I run to his aide, coming up behind the sentry bot to fire my buck shots into the thing over and over again. And just as any opponent would do, the thing causing the most damage becomes the main target. I can’t react fast enough when the sentry bot’s upper portion spins to me, knocking me to the side with the force of ten men. I wince as I hit the ground, but Gage is quick to distract the thing from me as he unloads a few rounds into the bot.  
           Still, it seems to not do much to the giant robot, and if we keep going on like this, we’ll be out of ammo before we know it. “Fuck this,” I say while reaching into my belt and grabbing a grenade.  
           I stagger to my feet and pull the pin before sticking it deep into the crook of its neck. Now, we need to run. “Go, go, go, go…” I yell while running past Gage, grabbing onto his cage armor as I do. And as we make it into the corridor, the explosion from the grenade sends me into a kneeling position, pulling Gage down with me as we shield our head and neck.  
           The sound of fuses sparking, flames burning…it’s all we hear after a few seconds. The two of us pick our heads up and look over our shoulder and the steaming hunk of metal behind us. And even though the grenade worked, I’m amazed that the sentry bot—for the most part—is still in one piece.  
           “Grenade?”  
           I sigh, exasperated. “Yeah.  
           But another explosion coming from the bot causes us to brace ourselves once more, and I feel Gage shoving me onto the ground, shielding my body with his. I don’t know if he feels it’s his duty to protect me—me being Overboss and all—but it’s really unnecessary. And when the effects of the second explosion die down, I shove Gage away. “Get off,” I gripe, and he stands, offering his hand to me as he does.  
           Gage and I manage to find two more star cores in the theater, the only other real threat being a Mr. Gutsy and a protectron upstairs. But those things, they’re easy to kill. It’s when we’re being swarmed by them that we feel the need to run instead of stay and fight. Which is why once we’ve cleared the theater, we’re less than thrilled about the prospect of going back outside.  
We sit in the main entrance hall, our backs to the front door. Out of options and ideas. Because going back out there, it’s suicide, really. “We’re gonna be stuck in here forever.”  
           Gage chuckles. “You’ve got a flare for the dramatics, you know that?” He manages to make me smirk again—something he’s quite good at. Maybe it’s his sense of humor. I haven’t been in the company of anyone with a good sense of humor since Hancock passed. Macready, as dry as they come, and it might be part of the reason things never progressed past friendship with us—something I’m certain he feels discontent about.  
           Not that anything happened between me and Hancock, but the two of us were buddies. Never any sort of romantic affiliation whatsoever, and he didn’t seem to mind that in the least.      “Hey boss, you got any more of them grenades on ya?” Gage asks, snapping me out of my thoughts.  
           “Yeah, why?”  
           I wasn’t entirely convinced that pulling the pin from a grenade and rolling it out the front door would do the trick, but after the sound of the explosion died down, so did the sound of the robots stalking us.  
           Gage opens the front door and peeks his head out a bit before opening it completely and stepping outside. And just as he figured would happen, the attacking robots lay around the entrance in bits and pieces. Some, down for the count completely. Others just immobile, but I find it comical that they still threaten to kill us without the use of legs or thrusters.  
           Gage and I learn fast that it’s not so much being inside the buildings that are the biggest threat. In the vault-tec display, the worst we come across is an Assaultron, but our enemies are scattered inside the buildings. Easy to take out when it’s two against one or two against two.  
           It’s being outdoors that’s the big risk. And after finding six star cores in the vault-tec exhibit, we decide that it’s time to make our way across the park to the remaining buildings. The Battlezone and Nuka Galaxy.  
           Though the interior of Nuka Galaxy is quite sizable, I’m impressed with our ability to clear the area and find any star cores therein. Again, it’s much easier when we find our opponents in small numbers. With the exception of a few eyebots—to which we’ve been reduced to melee attacks—and a sentry bot who’s more focused on killing a toy alien than us, Nuka Galaxy is easy enough, but it takes a while. And by the time we manage to make it out of the building, the sun has already set.  
           “Can’t see shit out here,” Gage grumbles while we sneak along the buildings toward the Battlezone. “Wanna call it a day?”  
           I shake my head. “No,” I whisper while kneeling down in the darkness of the shadows. “We have sixteen star cores. We’re almost done.” I keep my eyes on a few eyebots and a protectron in the distance. So long as we can cross the walkway without drawing any attention to us, we should be able to make it into the Battlezone without any problems.  
           “Your call, boss,” Gage says.  
           We cross the walkway and manage to make it into the Battlezone unscathed, but inside is a completely different story. A shit show of destruction, mostly due to the fact that there’s limited space inside. Hardly anywhere to escape if necessary, but Gage and I do our best to exterminate the threats. Protectrons, eyebots, and even a few assaultrons.  
           We come across a locked door, and I remove my bag from my back to pull out a screw driver and a bobby pin. After tinkering with the thing for a few seconds, the lock clicks and the door slides open. “Yes,” I mutter to myself.  
           Gage chuckles. “Never had the hands for that kinda shit. Glad you do.”  
           “It’s really not that hard,” I say while slinging my bag back over my shoulder. “I’ll teach you some time, if you want.”  
           “Yeah, sure. Where’d you learn how to do that anyway?” he asks while we enter the room and ascend a small flight of stairs.  
           I laugh uncomfortably. “Uh…chalk it up to misspent youth. I wasn’t exactly a model citizen in my formative years.”  
           “That what you think you are? A model citizen?” he asks as we enter a small room overlooking the arena.  
           I laugh. “Not exactly. But there was a time. Back when me and Nate got married.” I see a few blinking lights in the corner of the room, and my eyes light up. Another star core. Two more, and we’re done.  
           “Where is your husband?” Gage asks, and the question puts me on edge. I consider lying to him. Telling him that Nate is back home, taking care of our synth son. But something tells me Gage has ways of finding out the truth if he wants.  
           “He’s, uh…he’s dead,” I say while sticking the star core into my bag.  
           Gage lets out a huff. “Shit, boss. Sorry I asked.”  
           “That’s okay, it was…” I sigh. “It happened a long time ago. A little over two-hundred years now.” I sling my bag onto my back again, but a grin on Gage’s face disturbs me because most people wouldn’t grin after hearing someone’s loved one is dead. “What?” I snap, rather offended.  
           “You’re fucking with me, right?” he asks.  
           I scoff and push past him. “I wish I was.”  
           We enter the seating area of the arena once more, but with only nineteen star cores in my possession, I feel the need to keep on investigating. We circle the arena and come to a door that leads to a small flight of stairs. It takes us down into what looks like a control room, but I stop dead in my tracks when I see a dormant sentry bot ahead.  
           I don’t know if the thing is up and running, but it’s too big a risk, and the room below doesn’t give much space in the way of fighting. “Damn sentry bot,” I whisper. “Gage, hand me a…” I turn to him, and he’s already holding a grenade out to me. I smile and take it from him. “Great minds,” I say.  
           The two of us move back up the stairs a bit. I pull the pin and toss the grenade into the room below. I close my eyes and cover my ears, bracing for the sound of an explosion. I flinch at the sound, but when I open my eyes again, I see that the grenade really didn’t do much other than awake a dormant assaultron that I didn’t see before.  
           As well as awake the sentry bot. “Shit,” I curse. “We should go.” I try to stand, but Gage holds me in place.  
           “Hang on, look…” I direct my attention down into the room once more, and the strangest thing has started to happen. “They’re fighting each other.”  
           Yes, they most certainly are. And it’s exhilarating. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want the senty bot to win. Mostly because, we can fight the thing from the stairwell. That giant hunk of metal looks like it can’t even fit through the doorway. The assaultron, on the other hand, can go anywhere we can.  
           The two of us watch in silent anticipation as the two bots battle it out. And sure enough, the sentry bot starts sparking. Within a few minutes, it explodes, causing Gage to pull me back and the two of us to shield our faces.  
           But I can still hear the assaultron. I hear her annoying little drills for hands and the warming up of the giant laser she shoots from her face. “Get ready, boss,” Gage says.  
           I scramble to pull the shotgun from my back. And the sight of the assaultron running up the stairs at us sends a panic through me. I fire a shot into her face, and astonishingly, she falls backwards—her head exploding into bits of broken metal.  
           I’m stunned. “Well that was easy.”  
           “Probably took a lot of damage during the fight,” Gage mutters.  
           A genius thing. Robots fighting robots, and I can see the allure of a place called the Battlezone. We descend the steps and enter the control room. On a control panel, an empty slot where a star core used to reside. “Shit,” I curse.  
           We cross the room and go up another set of stairs only to find ourselves behind the arena with the door leading out to the seating area straight ahead. “This whole place is just one big circle,” Gage says.  
           “We need to find another star core. There has to be another one here somewhere.”  
           “Why’s that?” he asks.  
           “Because I can hear it,” I mutter. “The arena’s still got power going to it.” I remove my bag from my back and kneel down to rummage around inside for a bottle of water, but Gage nudges me with his gun. When I look up to him, he’s pointing into the entryway of the arena. A control panel sits right ahead, and attached to it? The last star core.  
           My eyes widen. “Nice catch,” I say while standing to make my way inside the arena with only my shotgun in tow. In this moment, I feel relief. Like all the hard work and time spent in this park might actually have a nice payout. And with the last star core in my possession, the idea of going to sleep sometime soon makes me smile widely while crossing through the door to the arena.  
           “Hey, boss?” Gage speaks. “Maybe you shouldn’t just go walking in there.”  
           “We need that star core,” I mutter while my shotgun in my hands.  
           “I got a bad feeling about this,” he says. But when I enter the arena, a cold chill shoots up my spine. And suddenly, Gage’s bad feeling shifts onto me like some otherworldly force. My hand lingers over the star core. I pull my hand back and step away.  
           “You know, the mainframe might work with just nineteen,” Gage says from outside the arena door.  
           I consider. “Yeah…maybe you’re right.” I turn away from the console and start to head for the exit, but before I reach Gage, the door slides shut. The force of which sends my heart into my throat. I try to open the door, but it won’t budge. So I start banging on it. “Gage! Open the door!”  
           “I can’t, boss!” he yells. I start kicking the damn thing. But lights in the arena start flashing, and it’s in this moment that I’m certain I made a huge mistake. My bag remains on the other side of the door with Gage, and all I have is my shotgun. With no. Extra. Ammo.  
           I hear the automated voice of the announcer coming through the speakers in the arena. “Welcome to the Robco Battlezone!” he yells. “We’ve got a great fight planned for you tonight!”  
           “Ah, fuck…” I groan and start smashing my body into the door. “Gage, we’re…we’re on threat-con delta, here. I’m gonna need you to fucking do something, like, now!”  
           “Back away from the door,” he says, and I do. I hear him start shooting at the door, his bullets pinging off the steel trap, but it does nothing.  
           “Our first event,” the announcer begins. “Two galactrons going head to head!”  
           I look inward to the arena and see two galactrons rising from the floor. Ah, shit, there’s two of them! “Gage, I don’t have the ammo for this!” I shout.  
           “All right, just calm down,” he says, but I can barely hear him through the door. “You gotta take ‘em out, boss. But, uh…let ‘em…let ‘em rough each other up a bit first.”  
           “What?” I snap.  
           “It’s the Battlezone! They’ll fight each other until they see your ass!” he yells.  
           Yes, of course. It’s the same thing that happened in the basement between the assaultron and the sentry bot. I look to the small alcove where the star core is located and make a dash across the way to duck down inside.  
           My heart is pounding. But when I hear the galactrons duking it out in the main portion of the arena, I’m able to calm myself a bit. Because maybe they’ll just kill each other. And then I won’t have to do a damn thing.  
           I peer my head from around the corner of the alcove to watch the two galactrons battling it out, and it becomes clear within a matter of seconds who the victor of the two will be. I wait until one of them becomes rigid and start shorting out. A small explosion comes from the head of the losing galactron, leaving the other to start walking around the arena, feeling victorious.  
           I see Gage move into view through the giant spectator window. He points to the galactron and mutters something, but I can’t hear him. I assume he’s saying “do it, now,” so I crawl out from the alcove and run up behind the galactron. I fire one of my buck shots into the thing, and it begins to turn to me. Another shot, however, knocks the thing to its side.  
I look at Gage through the glass, and he gives me the thumbs up before both of us run for the door again. But still, it won’t open. “Son of a…”  
           “Door’s still stuck, boss,” Gage says.  
           “You think??” I shout, panicked.  
           “Next up, let’s see who will come out on top between a group of eyebots!” the announcer says.  
           “Fucking eyebots,” I groan. A flash of blue light hits the door next to my head, and I can’t contain a scream while shoving myself away.  
           I hit the ground and start scooting back into the alcove, but I’m only there for a second before an eyebot sets its sights on me. I raise my shotgun and fire, sending the annoying little robot back and away from me. It hits the ground, and I push myself up to my feet, watching to see if it’ll make a comeback. But it doesn’t move.  
           Only two more, I tell myself. I peer from around the alcove to see two other eyebots shooting at each other and dodging one another’s attempts until one hits the ground and lie motionless. But it doesn’t take long before the remaining eyebot’s attention is on me.  
           It comes at me, firing its annoying little blue lasers. I dodge them, fire a shot, miss. Dodge again, fire a shot, miss. It’s not a vote of confidence for my abilities with a shotgun. I get frustrated and fire over and over at the thing, but it’s too quick and too small, and I don’t have the ammo for this.  
           “Son of a bitch!” I yell and then use my shotgun as a baseball bat to smash the little fucker into the viewing window—destroying the thing with one, mighty blow. My eyes land on Gage, and he gives an approving nod.  
           We run for the door again, but it still won’t open. “Next up, two mighty assaultron’s battling it out! Who will be the victor tonight in Galactic Battlezone?!” the announcer shouts, and I feel sick to my stomach.  
           “Oh my god,” I whine. I turn to the door and start kicking it again, desperate to free myself from this goddamn arena, but a glow of red light coming from behind me distracts my efforts, and my eyes drift to the upper portion of the arena where two assaultrons have set their sights on one another.  
           I try to run for my alcove again, but my quick movements grab the attention of one of the assaultrons, and I feel the red hot heat from its laser on my boot heel. “Shit,” I curse and dart to the right to hide behind the partition in the middle of the arena.  
           My eyes meet with Gage standing on the other side of the glass, and the look on his face is enough to make me hurl. I see it in him—he doesn’t think I’ll make it out alive, and neither do I, honestly.  
           An assaultron comes to my right, and before I can point my gun at it, the sharp drills on its hands stab into my shoulder—right into the wound that Colter made the night of the gauntlet. I shout and fall back onto the ground. The assaultron comes at me with its drill again, stabbing the floor beside my head.  
           I scream, but the damn thing is practically on top of me. I do the only thing I can—use all my strength to hold its hands away from me. But it’s strong. So much stronger than myself, and with blood oozing out of my wounded shoulder, my arm becomes shaky. And the pain is unfathomable.  
           I try to reach for my shotgun, but the assaultron is unrelenting. This is it, I think. Death by fucking robot. After everything I’ve been through. And if things couldn’t get even more terrifying, the bright red laser on its face begins booting up. And it’s pointed right at my face.  
           But a bright red light illuminates the arena. The heat from a laser, I feel it on my face, but it’s not from my attacker. The assaultron in my hands—it begins heating up, burning my palms as I hold it off. I wince and shove the thing off of me—its defenses having been shorted out by an incoming attack from the other assaultron.  
           I scramble to my feet and grab my shotgun before the remaining assaultron can launch at me. I duck behind the other side of the partition before sneaking around the opposite side, successfully putting me behind the last assaultron. I fire a shot into its head, but it whips around and hits me with its sharp little claws, knocking me into the viewing window.  
           When it comes for me again, I melee the robot with my shotgun and fire another round, knocking it back. And then I fire another. But the laser on its face begins heating up again, so I focus my attention on its legs. One shot after another after another until it’s completely immobile, though still very much alive.  
           I cock my shotgun again and point it directly at the fallen assaultron’s face. But when I pull the trigger, nothing happens. I toss the shotgun aside and grab onto the assaultrons head, forcing my boot onto its back for leverage before ripping the head off with one, mighty pull. Something I’m sure I loosened up with all my buck shots.  
           “And the assaultrons are out!” the announcer yells.  
           I’m exhausted. I drop the assaultron head and grab my shotgun before slowly walking back to the exit of the arena. But the door—it still doesn’t open.  
           “And now for our main event!” the announcer yells.  
           I sigh in defeat. “Hey, Gage?” I mutter.  
           “Don’t tell me you’re outta ammo,” he groans.  
           I look at the shotgun. “Yeah,” I say with an exasperated sigh. Yeah, I am. But the world has no mercy. And when the flashing lights in the arena seem to go into overdrive, I know that my newest attacker won’t be an easy one.  
           I back away from the door and look to a set of double doors at the top of a small flight of stairs. They open, and inside might as well be the angel of death. “Put your hands together for the robot to end all other, the Space Sentry!”  
           Everything seems to move in slow motion after that. The sentry bot, it raises its arms and starts firing at me, and I run as fast as I can to the right side of the arena. But I can feel it’s bullets on my heels, kicking up the broken concrete behind me.  
           I duck behind the partition again, but the sentry bot is quick to come around the other side. And the only thing I have to fight back is a shotgun that’s out of bullets. I move around the other side of the partition and come up behind the sentry bot, using my shotgun as a bat to smack it in the head over and over again, but it hardly does anything.  
           The sentry bots upper portion spins toward me, knocking me away from it, sending me into the adjacent wall. I smack my head on the viewing glass, and everything becomes fuzzy for a moment. But the sentry bot comes right for me.  
           I push myself away from the wall and duck under one of its arms before climbing onto its back. And from there, I start smashing it’s head with my shotgun again. But it’s not going to do the trick, and the abrupt movements from the sentry bot makes the ride comparable to a bucking bronco. Within a matter of seconds, I’m thrown from its back, and I hit the ground, hard.  
It opens fire on me, grazing my thigh as I’m not quite quick enough to move out of the way in time. I shout in pain. The attack, it cuts through my pants and leaves me with a singing burn, smoke billowing from my thigh, and the smell of burning flesh is enough to make me sick. But the sentry bot, it isn’t done.  
           I crawl to the other side of the partition as it comes for me, but I only have seconds before it reaches me again. And that’s when I see the severed head from the assaultron laying inches away from me. I wince at the sound of the sentry bot firing off. I need to create space between me and my attacker.  
           I grab the assaultron’s head and run for the steps leading to the upper mezzanine. It seems I went unnoticed, for now, and after finding a relatively safe space on top of the mezzanine, I hold the assaultron’s head in my hands and aim the laser right at the sentry bot.  
           A manual switch on the back allows me to shoot the bright, red hot laser at my attacker. And as powerful as the laser is, I feel confident that it might be successful when given enough time. But the sentry bot comes for me. It rolls up the steps to the mezzanine, and I climb over the railing to jump into the arena below before focusing the assaultrons laser on the sentry bot once more.  
           I fire the laser, and it seems to do the trick. But I keep moving while focusing on my target. And even though the assaultron’s head is becoming hot in my hands, I know I can’t stop. Not now. And once again, the sentry bot comes down the steps toward me, firing away. But he’s weakened. I can tell by the slower reaction time and the blue sparks coming from its neck.  
It fires at me, but I duck behind the partition again. I can’t keep going on like this. My head, it hurts. And every inch of my body feels as though it might give out on me. I hear the sentry bot approaching. I grip the assaultron head tight in my hands and point it to the corner of the partition. And when the sentry bot rounds the corner, I fire. I don’t move—just keep the laser pointed right at it.  
           It becomes rigid. Sparks fly from its head, and it begins shaking. I watch in amazement, and then an explosion from the sentry bot knocks me onto my back. I shield my head and neck, preparing for an even bigger explosion that sends pieces of hot metal and debris flying at me.  
           Other than the sound of sparks flying and flames burning, the arena falls silent. I pick my head up to see the sentry bot in front of me, defeated. Broken. “And that concludes the show tonight, folks! We hope you had a good time here at Robco Battlezone!”  
           I hear the door to the arena open, and seconds later, Gage rounds the partition and runs to my side. “You okay, boss?”  
           I groan. “I’m alive. But I could probably use a stimpak.” He helps me to my feet, but the burn on my leg is excruciating. I wince and grip his armor as my leg shakes beneath my weight. “Ah, son of a…”  
           “Maybe we should rest for a while,” he says, and the idea doesn’t sound all that horrible after everything I just went through.  
           Gage assists me to the exit of the arena, but before exiting, I pull away from him. “Hold on,” I say while limping to the little alcove to remove the twentieth star core.

           Gage and I hole up in the gift shop to rest. And after injecting myself with a stimpak, I slowly feel myself returning to normal. Fucking stimpaks. The greatest advance in medicine ever made, and it only happened after the apocalypse. But I guess without all the pharmaceutical companies making more money off the suffering of others, maybe the medical field actually has room to progress.  
           “That was some quick thinking, boss,” Gage says, gathering my attention. “Using the assaultron head as a weapon. I don’t think I would have come up with that.”  
I force a weak smile. “I wasn’t sure if it’d work. Glad it did.”  
           “Me too,” he says. We’re quiet for a moment, and I lean back against the wall to try and get some rest. “Can I ask you something?” he says, and I pick my head up and look at him.  
           “I guess so.”  
           He hesitates. “What did you mean when you said your husband died 200 hundred years ago? Like, it feels that long since he died, or…?”  
           I exhale slowly and attempt to try and think of a way to explain things to him. “No. Actually, it feels like only yesterday. But Nate, he…he did die a little over two-hundred years ago.” He’s confused. “Okay, you know how when…you fall asleep, and…it feels like you’ve only been asleep for a couple minutes, but in reality, it’s been a few hours?” He nods. “It’s like that. Nate and I, we…lived in the pre-war Commonwealth. And because of his military service…when word got out about nuclear war being a possibility, we were guaranteed a slot in one of the vaults.”  
           “I knew you were a vault dweller. Why else would you have that Pip-boy on your arm?” he says, and I nod. Sure, everyone knows I’m a vault dweller—if you can even call it that. Because truth be told, I didn’t spend a lot of time actually living in the vault. Just…kind of frozen there.  
           “Yeah, well…I guess our vault was selected to participate in some kind of fucked up experiment. They tricked us into thinking we were going into these…decontamination pods, but really, they put us into a cryogenic sleep. And something malfunctioned, killing practically everyone inside. Except me, for whatever reason.”  
           “Damn, boss. So he just…froze to death?”  
           I shake my head. “No, he was murdered. But this is where things get complicated, and I don’t think you really care to hear all the gritty details.” We fall silent again, and I study Gage for a moment. Not at all like any of the raiders I’ve ever come in contact with before; I’m curious about him. “What about you, Gage? Got a wife? Kids?”  
           He chuckles. “Nah, nothin’ like that.”  
           “Girlfriend?” He smirks at me. “Boyfriend?”  
           “No, boss. I like women, but I ain’t got one. Never really saw the point in settling down with one person for the rest of my life.”  
           “What about your family? Parents?”  
           “Shit, who the hell knows. Probably dead by now.”  
           I study him for a moment, and I begin to wonder if Gage even has the ability to care for anyone other than himself. Most raiders don’t. “Does that bother you?” I ask.  
           He shakes his head. “Nope. Doesn’t matter. Hasn’t mattered in decades.” I think he senses my aversion to his cold and callus behavior. “They were good people. They meant well, it’s just…your typical story out here in the wasteland. Settlers gettin’ taken for everything they had, giving everything they worked hard for to the raiders any time they came through. I didn’t want to be like that.”  
           “So you became a raider,” I say, unimpressed.  
           “That’s right. I left home when I was…what, twelve years old? Did some odd jobs here and there for money. Worked for a caravan for a while. But it was only a matter of time before I saw where I was really headed. Next time I came across a group of raiders, I joined up. Haven’t looked back since.”  
           I think for a moment. “Ever think about mercenary work?”  
           Gage chuckles. “What, like that’s an honest living? You make money killing other people. Ain’t much different than a raider, if you ask me.”  
           I think about Macready, and I feel the need to defend him. “Well, mercenaries don’t kill innocent people.”  
           “You think anyone in this kinda fucked up world is innocent? I gotta tell ya, boss. You got another think comin’,” he says, and his response disturbs me. Not because of how depressing the thought is. But because he might be right.  
           “What about children?” I ask, and I almost don’t want to know the answer. Because I’m not so sure I can keep working with a man who doesn’t value the life of a child.  
           “Well…I don’t kill children, so there’s that.”  
           “But you kill women,” I say as more of a statement than anything. Already so sure that he’s committed acts of violence toward the fairer sex on more than one occasion.  
           “Now don’t start in on a lecture about chivalry. Half the women I come across in this world could take me out in a heartbeat. We’ve risen above gender roles in this society, and if anything, you should consider it a compliment that if you come at me with a loaded gun I’d end your life. Means I see you as a threat.” It’s a fucked up outlook, but he’s not wrong. “I mean, hell, look at Nisha. You wouldn’t go pissin’ in my cereal if I cut her throat, now, would ya?”  
           “No, I suppose not.”  
           “All right then. So what are we really talking about?”  
           I sigh and fold my arms. “I guess I’m just wondering if I can trust you. If there’s something that would stop you from sticking a knife in my back.”  
           Gage leans his head back against the wall and studies me for a moment. “This about Colter?” he asks, and I don’t respond. “Yeah, I figured it could be a sore spot between us. But he was a piece of shit. Needed to be put down. You, you’re different. And so far, you make a pretty damn good Overboss.”  
“It’s hard to take a raider at his word,” I say.  
           “Well, what other choice you got?”  
           He’s right, I don’t have a choice. Even with Macready, it took a while to trust him—even if I paid him in the beginning. But he turned out to be one of the only friends I have remaining in the Commonwealth, and I start to feel sick about everything I’m putting him through. Surely he thinks something bad happened to me.  
           I manage to get a few hours of sleep, and by the time Gage and I leave the Robco Battlezone, the sun is already starting to rise. We manage to make it to Starport Nuka relatively easily other than having to put down a couple bots on the way. But after inserting all the star cores and rebooting the mainframe, it all seems worth the trouble.  
I deactivate defensive mode for the bots, and once we’ve double checked to make sure the park is safe, I pull the Operators’ flag from my bag and suspend it from the flagpole. Gage and I stand there for a moment, admiring the view and our efforts to clear Nuka-Galaxy. I won’t lie—it feels good.  
But there are four more parks. And God only knows how this will all play out.


	8. Anything Goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett and Gage have a bit of fun before heading back to Nuka-Town only to find someone has stepped out of line. Warnings are given and threats are made.*

           While leaving Nuka-Galaxy, Gage inquires about the next move. Wondering if we’ll be heading back to Nuka-Town or moving on to the next location. But with the sun high in the sky, my wounds healed up (thanks to the stimpak) and the amount of ammo we still have stashed away in my green bag, I decide to have a look around Dry Rock Gulch.  
           “If it’s too much, we’ll retire for the day. Go back and stock up before heading out again tomorrow,” I say as we approach the entrance to the park. To be honest, I’m high as a fucking kite on adrenaline—getting one park secured already—and I really have no desire to slow our pace. Especially since Gage said bloodworms were easy to kill.  
           But then again, he said Nuka-Galaxy would be easy too.  
           “It would have been easier if someone didn’t steal all the star cores,” Gage grumbles after telling him I’m unsure about his judgement when it comes to the difficulty of things.  
           We cross through the gate, and immediately, I find the park to be adorable. Set up perfectly like the wild west, and I can imagine that during its prime, Dry Rock Gulch might have been the most fun of all the parks. Or maybe I just like that sort of thing.  
           But as we walk further into the park, some sort of tremor beneath my boots makes me stop walking and look to the ground beneath me. “Did you feel that?”  
           Gage turns to look at me. “No.”  
           Maybe I didn’t either. We continue walking until we see a protectron come into view, and after the crap we just dealt with at Nuka-Galaxy, the tension I feel between both Gage and I at the sight is all too obvious.  
           “You think its hostile?” Gage asks, but I shrug and slowly start to approach.  
           “Howdy partners,” the protectron speaks in his robotic voice. “Welcome to Dry Rock Gulch, where it’s always high noon.” I lower my rifle and stare questioningly at the robot. “Hope y’all are having a good day here at Nuka-World. Ready to saddle up and ride into the old wild west?”  
           “Oh my god, he thinks he’s a cowboy,” I say while bringing my hand to chest. Down right the cutest thing I have ever witnessed. “Oh my god, I want one.”  
           Gage chuckles. “No.”  
           I scoff. “No?” I nudge Gage. “I’ll distract him, you sneak up from behind and grab him.”  
           “Boss?”  
           I lean forward, closer to the little robot. “You’re coming home with me, little guy.”  
           “Hey boss?” Gage continues over the sound of the little robot cowboy’s dialogue, and I kind of become frustrated that he’s running this for me.  
           “What?” I ask while looking to Gage, who’s now a few steps ahead of me.  
           “That thing you felt earlier…was it, like, the earth was moving?”  
           I stand upright again and focus on him intently, now certain I hadn’t been imagining the tremors at all. But before I can speak, the ground behind Gage seems to break, and something awful looking comes shooting out of the Earth.  
           “What the…” I begin, but Gage is quick to shoot the thing, killing it before it even hits the ground again. I sling my rifle over my shoulder and approach the dead creature with Gage at my side.  
           The sight of the giant worm, it makes me wince while kneeling down to get a better look. “Oh my god,” I say through clenched teeth before looking up at Gage. “Bloodworms?”  
           Gage nods. “Mhmm. Another nuisance the Commonwealth insists on shitting out.”  
           I stand and make my way back to the protectron. “Hey…”  
           “Howdy partners. Welcome to Dry Rock Gulch, where it’s always high noon.” I open my mouth to speak, but the robot continues. “Hope y’all are having a good day here at Nuka-World. Ready to saddle up and ride into the old wild west?”  
           “You want me to shoot him?” Gage asks, and I’m appalled.  
           “No, I don’t want you to shoot him! He’s adorable.” I focus back on the protectron. “Are you in charge here?” I ask.  
           “We like to say the only thing that’s really in charge here is fun!” he says in his robotic voice, and I almost die. “You ready to have a good time here at Dry Rock Gulch?”  
           I smile. “Hmm…it seems like you have a pretty bad bug infestation here.  
           “You must mean the no good outlaws that are coming out of Mad Mulligan’s Mine,” he says, his voice shorting out a bit on the last part. But still, his dialogue is very informative, and I find myself scanning the area, looking for the source of the bloodworm infestation. “Well, partner, if you’re interested in lending a hand, I could use a new deputy! What do you say?”  
           “Yes.”  
           “Really?” Gage grumbles.  
           “Absolutely.”  
           The protectron informs me about all the stops that need to be made to assist other robots around the park—the end result being a safe combination that will give us access to the keys to Mad Mulligans Mine.  
           This park, I realize early on that the bloodworms are hardly a threat. In fact, Gage and I sort of make a game out of who can shoot the most bloodworms dead before they hit the ground again—seeing as how they always shoot up into the freaking sky about ten feet every time they make an appearance. And by the time we reach out first stop along the way of helping the park’s robots, Gage has killed three bloodworms before they hit the ground. And I, only two.  
           “You can’t count the first. We weren’t even playing yet,” I mutter while approaching the Giddyup Kid.  
           “Nah, it counts.”  
           “Oh thank goodness, it’s the new deputy,” the Giddyup Kid begins when Gage and I stop in front of him. “You gotta help me. My herd of Giddyup Buttercups have all fled the pokey…”  
           These robots, they’re killing me. I hit Gage in the chest and gasp—my only other reaction to witnessing something so adorable. “Oh my god, he called it the pokey.”  
           “You got a thing for robots, boss?”  
           I feel my face contort into something awful. The sort of face one makes before crying. “He thinks he’s people.”  
           “Jesus H. Christ,” Gage says before walking away, leaving me alone with the little robot, all up in arms about his Giddyup Buttercups.  
           “You gotta track ‘em down and bring ‘em back to my corral. Now, Giddyup Buttercups can’t resist the taste of Nuka-Cola, so check all of our refreshment stands!”  
           And with that, Gage and I set off toward the concession booth, keeping our eyes peeled for Giddyup Buttercups, and our feelers out for shaking earth beneath our boots. But I can tell Gage isn’t enjoying himself. A waste of time, he says, helping robots do shit that don’t even matter.  
           “Yeah, well if we want to get into Mad Mulligan’s Mine and wipe out the cause to all these…bloodworms, then we have to play along.”  
           I glance into one of the trash bins in search of the Giddyup Buttercups, but none are in sight, and I’m starting to think that this little errand might be futile. “We can try picking the lock,” Gage says, and I consider. But before making a decision, the ground in front of me explodes—sending dirt and rock all over me while a giant bloodworm flies into the air.  
           I fire at the thing and miss, and once it’s on the ground, it starts squirming right toward me. But I’m distracted by the sound of the ground exploding once more right next to Gage. And then again behind us. And then once more. Suddenly, the idea of bloodworms is much more terrifying than before.  
           A squeal escapes me when one of them reaches my boots, and I fire at the thing—exploding it into bits of blood and guts. But two more are headed for me, and Gage seems preoccupied with his own bloodworms swarming him.  
           I back into the concession stand and climb onto a table before pointing my rifle at one and then another, killing them both the first go. “Gage!” I yell, and a loud groan coming from the side of me catches my attention.  
           Gage uses his gun to smash one of them into mush while the one behind him disappears back into the ground before I can even attempt to help. “You good?” he asks.  
           I’m panting. My heart is pounding, and one of the little fuckers got away. But I’m good. “Yeah,” I call to him. “Okay. Let’s try and pick the lock.”

           Gage keeps watch while I kneel down in front of the door to Mad Mulligan’s Mine, but after breaking my third bobby pin, I’m starting to realize that we may actually have to finish all the errands the robots insist we do. I sigh, exasperated when my last bobby pin breaks. “Thing’s locked up tight.”  
           “Nothin’, huh?” Gage asks while I stand to my full height, and I shake my head.  
           “No. And I’m out of bobby pins.”  
           “Guess we better go start looking for that damn Giddyup Buttercup.”  
           We return to the concession stand and find one of the metal horses stashed behind the counter. And after returning the horse to the corral, the Giddyup Kid gives us a piece of the safe combination.  
           Our next stop, the Saloon where a robot by the name of Doc Phosphate stands behind the counter. But my eyes scan the Saloon, and I’m impressed by how authentic it seems—even if it’s been reduced to a post-apocalyptic state. “Look around. See if you can find anything useful,” I say to Gage before approaching the bar.  
           “You look parched there, stranger,” Doc Phosphate begins. “You know what you need? A bottle of Nuka-Cola Wild. The root-based flavor with teeth.”  
           “Uh…no, thanks,” I say. To be honest, Nuka Cola sounds terrible right now. Or maybe it’s because I’m already sick of everything Nuka.  
           “Hey boss, found some stimpaks,” Gage says.  
           “Awesome, nice work.” I focus back on the robot.  
           “Hospitality is a big deal here in Dry Rock Gulch. That’s why I want you to handle tending the bar.” I glance around the room, unsure how I’m supposed to help in that kind of situation. “I got three orders of drinks I need you to deliver. One is just upstairs, and the other two are in town. You game?”  
           “You’re not seriously gonna do that, are you?”  
           I glance over my shoulder to Gage, attempting to think of a way to get what I want without having to actually deliver drinks to…no one. “Er…I already did. Remember?” I say to the robot. “You said I did, uh…a rootin’ tootin’ good job.”  
           “That does sound like me,” he says in his robotic voice. “Here. My part to the safe combination.” He gives me a piece of paper, but I feel dirty. Wrong for the lies I’ve told.  
           “Aw, I feel bad.”  
           “He ain’t gonna know the difference,” Gage says while escorting me out of the Saloon.  
           We walk along the dirt road, further down a ways to meet up with the last robot on our list of stops to make. But along the way, three bloodworms decide to make an appearance, only rifling our feathers slightly as we fail to shoot any of them while they catapult themselves into the sky. But it doesn’t take long to kill them off, and by the time we make it to One-Eyed Ike, I’m starting to feel a bit more hopeful about clearing out the rest of the parks. Because maybe Nuka-Galaxy was just a fluke.  
           “So you’re the new deputy, huh? Well, I ain’t impressed yet. Let’s see how you handle an old fashioned quick draw duel.”  
I snicker, but I feel Gage’s gaze on me.  
           “The rules are simple,” the robot continues. “We’ll walk into the street. I’ll count to three, and then I’ll say draw. First one to hit the other, wins.”  
           “Sounds easy enough,” I say while turning to head into the street. I wait for my opponent to step up and face me, my hand wavering over the pistol on my thigh while Gage hangs back to watch the duel.  
           And once One-Eyed Ike is in position, he turns to face me. “One…two…three…”  
           I grip my pistol and fire a shot into the robot’s arm, and I’m pleased to see that it seemingly does nothing to him. Because that would break my heart. “Woohoo! Fastest hands in the west.”  
           “That was some good shootin’ there, deputy. Here. My part to the safe combination, and enjoy Mad Mulligan’s Mine.”  
           Once we retrieve the key to Mad Mulligan’s Mine, Gage and I are all too eager to enter the ride and rid the area of bloodworms. Because as the day has gone on, my adrenaline has worn off, and I can tell by the look on Gage’s face that he’s ready for some rest. Rest back in the comfort of Fizztop Mountain and not holed up in a building surrounded by hostiles.  
           We keep our wits about us as we enter—the mine being dimly lit and made mostly of dirt, meaning bloodworms could be lurking anywhere. The ceiling, the walls, and of course, the floor. But by the time we make it to the large portion of the ride, we’ve only encountered about three of the worms. And just like all the others, they’re easy enough to take down with one shot.  
In the main room, however, a large crater seems to have enveloped most of the surrounding area. And if it already weren’t easy enough clearing Dry Rock Gulch, a giant, disgusting fat bloodworm rests right in the middle of the crater. It’s belly, gyrating from what I assume to be larva.  
           “Oh my God…I’m never eating meat agin,” I mutter at the sight of the disgusting thing. Hardly an intimidation because judging by the size of our “queen” I don’t suspect she moves very fast.  
           “Grenade?” Gage asks, and I nod, forcing myself to look away from the thing in disgust.  
           I let Gage do the honors of blowing that nasty thing into obliteration while standing guard, waiting for any bloodworms to come jumping out at us. “Be ready. Once that thing goes off, I have a feeling bloodworms are gonna come popping out of the ground.”  
           “Ready?” Gage asks, grenade in hand.  
           “Yeah,” I say, disgusted. “Just do it already. It fucking stinks in here.”  
           He pulls the pin and tosses the grenade into the crater before running to my side to join me. And when the explosion goes off, I feel Gage’s arm move in front of me, pushing me further away from the sight of the explosion. Protective in the way he does it. But questioning his motives is hardly on my mind at the moment.  
           The two of us inch forward to the edge of the crater, and I almost vomit at the sight of blood and guts from the giant blood worm queen being blown to shit. “So disgusting.”  
           “I’m startin’ to be happy we skipped lunch,” Gage says.  
           I nudge him and tip my head to the other side of the room. “You get over there, I’ll cover over here. Let’s try and make it home before dinner.”  
           He chuckles. “Eatin’ is the last thing on my mind, boss.” But he does as I ask, and just as we suspected, within seconds, the ground trembles and explodes with bloodworms, shooting out at us, no doubt having been disturbed by the explosion of the grenade.  
           I use my shotgun at this point. The best choice considering whatever’s coming at me is pretty close range, and with a shotgun, I don’t have to wonder if the damn thing is dead. Not when its insides are now on the outside. And within ten minutes time, the ground stops shaking. And our attackers seem to have either fled or been killed off.  
           “How are we going to know if they’re all dead?”  
           Gage shrugs. “Might have to just let the Disciples know that a few might still be lingering. But at least the source is gone.” True story. But just in case, before leaving, Gage and I stroll through the park, making as much noise as possible to try and alert any other bloodworms in the area.  
           Five total pop up to try and get revenge for taking out their queen, but once that’s done and over with, Dry Rock Gulch falls silent, and the ground falls steady.  
           “I gotta ask,” Gage says while handing me a Disciple flag from my bag. “Why’d you choose Dry Rock for the Disciples.”  
           I attach the flag to the post. “If I had it my way, they wouldn’t get anything. But mostly it’s because…I noticed from their happy abode that they like to get messy. With blood. I figure a predominately dirt territory would help with the mess. And the smell.”  
           Gage nods and helps me down from the flag post. “So what now?” he asks.  
           “Well, I don’t know about you, but I could use a good night’s sleep and some real food. And probably some more supplies before heading to the bottling plant.”  
           “Sounds like a plan, boss. Good work.”

           We return to Nuka-Town, and I’m all too eager to climb into my bed and sleep for the rest of the day and night. But it seems my eyes have only been closed for five minutes before Gage comes storming into my quarters. “Boss, wake up,” he says while shaking me.  
           I’m ripped back into the hell-hole that is Nuka-World, and after getting my wits about me, I sit up in bed and pull the tattered blanket over myself. Not that there’s anything to hide—that mattress is disgusting, and I insist on sleeping fully clothed. But when I get a good look around, I notice the sun has set. And perhaps more time has passed than I originally thought. “What the hell, Gage?”  
           “We got problems with The Pack.”  
           I groan. “Son of a…”  
           Gage and I walk through Nuka-Town, the only light being from the warm glow of the torches and the brightly colored twinkle lights from the Market and the Nest. but while passing the Parlor, I notice that hardly any Operators are around, and the ones I see, they’re traveling in groups—guns hot. After reaching the market and making a right toward the Nest, Gage leans in closer to me.  
           “Apparently, an Operator veteran was found hog tied and left for dead outside the gates of Nuka-World.”  
           I wince. “Jesus, is he all right?”  
           “No, he’s dead. And Mags and William are sure the Pack is to blame.”  
           “Why’s that?” I ask after passing a member of the Pack, and I can’t help but notice the look of chagrin on his face. A look that fades into hatred when his eyes fall onto me.  
           “Because the Disciples have a much messier MO.”  
           I don’t want to believe the Pack is to blame because I actually have high hopes for Mason. “Maybe the Disciples are framing them,” I suggest.  
           “You think that’s likely? Or do you think maybe handing out territory to the Operators and the Disciples might’ve pissed Mason off?” Gage says, and by the tone of his voice, I can assume his question is rhetorical.  
           We enter the Nest, and judging by the disgruntled looks from the members of the Pack, it becomes all too clear who’s to blame for the dead Operator. “What’s that smell?” one of the members says as we pass.  
           “Smells like dead meat,” another one responds with a vicious chuckle.  
           I’m too tired for this shit, and my disappointment with Mason is starting to boil over. The leader of the Pack, he’s not at his throne, but Gage escorts us to an area inside the arena that looks like it was once used as a medical bay—now fully decked out with Pack décor and a rather large bed and table in the middle of the room.  
           We find Mason sitting at the head of the table with a few higher ranking members of his crew as we enter, but their conversation falls silent. And the look in Mason’s eyes says it all. He harbors hatred, yet not a shred of remorse for the problems he’s caused.  
           “Boys, can you give me and the Overboss a minute alone?” he says in his cool, sharp tone, and the members of his gang leave us. “You really shouldn’t be here, boss. You ain’t my favorite person in the world right now.”  
           I slam my hands onto the table. “What the hell did you do, Mason?”  
           “What did I do? I ain’t do nothin’.”  
           “There’s a dead Operator laying out in the Parlor right now. Mags and William, they want revenge. They want some kind of retribution for the crimes you’ve committed. One of your own on the chopping block.”  
           “That why you’re here?” he challenges.  
           “I’m not gonna take one of your men from you. But what the hell were you thinking?” I snap.  
           Mason stares at me for a moment. “What were you thinking? Sure, boss. I get why you might want to back the Operators. But choosing the Disciples over the Pack, it’s left a bad taste in our mouths. And we ain’t so sure we trust you and the ways you choose to run things around here.”  
           I groan and run my hands over my face. “Big baby.”  
           “What’s that?” Mason says, again in his challenging manner.  
           “I’ve cleared two parks, Mason. Two, that’s it. Maybe if you wait your turn, you might be quite pleased with the way I choose to hand out territory. But after this, I’m not so sure if you even deserve any.”  
           “It ain’t about the land anymore, boss. It’s about the order in which you dish your spoils. You take care of the Pack last? We can’t help but feel you’ve made a home for us in the back of your mind.”  
           I open my mouth to speak, but Gage cuts me off. “It ain’t true, Mason. The boss here has taken you into consideration—handing out territory based on the needs of each gang. Just so happens the ones best suited for you are the hardest to clear.”  
           Mason diverts his attention to Gage. “What are you even doing here, Porter Gage? You know if the gangs had it their way, you’d be six feet under with that scum bag, Colter…”  
           His disrespect toward Gage—and in my presence—has me livid. “Show some respect for the man who got you here. If it weren’t for Gage, you’d still be some two-bit piece of shit raider gang barely surviving off of the scraps from the settlements of the Commonwealth. And I can guarantee you, my Minutemen would have put a bullet right between your eyes months ago. But, as luck would have it, Gage here brought you in on this whole Nuka-World deal, and it’s because of him you’ve been sitting pretty on your stupid little throne out there.”  
           Mason seems a bit taken back by my outburst. He glances to Gage and then looks down at the table before a grin spreads across his face. “You think I’m afraid of the Minutemen?”  
           “We eat raiders like you for breakfast. Make no mistake, Mason. If you can’t handle your shit, I will toss your ass outside the gate and see how long you last.” Mason seems uncomfortable, and finally, it seems as though I’m getting through to him. I take a deep breath to calm myself a bit. “The Operators want blood. I’m not gonna give them that because…I believe it’ll just be an all-out war after that. But you need to rectify this. We don’t kill our own, Mason. We’ll never survive.”  
           He scoffs. “Our own? I ain’t one of them. And they ain’t one of mine.”  
           “You better start whistling a different tune there, bud. Because like it or not, we’re stuck with one another. And if that isn’t enough motivation for you to get a handle on your people, then think about this. There are three parks left to assign. And if you continue on like this, assuming you’re at the bottom of the barrel simply because of the order in which I choose to divvy up the loot—rest assured, you will be. And I really don’t think your ‘Pack’ can take on the Operators and the Disciples. Because all I have to do is give the word.” Mason considers. I lean onto the table again. “Do I make myself clear?”  
           He studies me for a moment, displeased. But then a smirk spreads across his face. “Crystal, boss. And, hey…don’t let a little thing like a dead Operator get in the way of our budding relationship. You can still come back from this.”  
           I nod. “So can you. Just don’t do it again.”  
           He salutes me, a half-hearted salute before I exit his quarters, and when Gage and I exit into the warm evening air, I feel myself shaking. And I can finally take a breath. Because it feels like hours since I did. “Shit, boss. Well fuckin’ done,” Gage says.  
           I don’t know what to say. So I just laugh. A shaky, quivered laugh, one that feels as though it steals the breath from my lungs. “Come on, let’s…let’s get out of here.”  
           Gage and I return to Fizztop Mountain, but the adrenaline from my meeting with Mason has me on edge and far from wanting to go back to sleep. I toss and turn in my bed, trying my hardest to find a bit of peace that might allow me to get some rest before heading out to the bottling plant in the morning. But nothing comes to me, and now I just want to talk to someone. I wish Macready was here.  
           I find Gage still awake in his quarters. The sound of the raider radio station playing quietly in the background as he rolls a cigarette at the long table in the middle of his chambers, and I become envious of how clean his space is compared to mine—thanks to Colter. But when I enter, Gage looks up at me. “Everything all right?” he asks, and I nod.  
           I watch his fingers expertly line his rolling paper with tobacco before packing more inside. A rather large cigarette he’s rolling. “Roll me one of those?” I ask.  
           “Sure, boss,” he says and sets his aside before pulling another sheet of rolling paper from the package. “How do you like it?”  
           I pull out the chair next to him. “Thin. It’s been so long since I’ve had a cigarette.”  
           I watch him roll the thing in his hands, the way his fingers line the tobacco and the way he licks the edges to keep it together. “I wouldn’t have guessed you be a smoker,” he mutters before putting the cigarette in his mouth to light it with a match.  
           “Not so much anymore,” I say, and he hands me the lit cigarette. I take a drag, and immediately, my nerves feel a bit calmer. I lean back in the chair, admiring the expertise of the rolling that went into making my smoke. The tightness of it, the smooth burn. “God, it’s been 200 years since I’ve had a smoke.”  
           Gage puts his cigarette in his mouth and lights it before taking a long drag. “You smoke a lot before?” he asks, somewhat disinterested.  
           I shake my head. “Not really. It was more of a social thing back then.” We’re quiet for a moment, enjoying our smokes while the sound of Red-eye’s voice fills the silence between us. Some story about a raider named Atlas and Hope. “You good?” I ask.  
           “Me, boss?” I nod. “I’m fine. Happy as a pig in the mud.”  
           I don’t believe him. Not after what Mason said to him earlier. “Because…that was…really cruel, what Mason said.”  
           “Ah, I ain’t worried about him. Or any of the other gangs. They’re just pissed. Lookin’ for someone to blame. Hard to do when the source of their anger is dead.”  
           “You don’t think they’ll turn on you?”  
           Gage exhales a large cloud of smoke. “If things don’t change, sure. But they’ve already started to, so…no. I think I’m safe for now.” He shrugs. “It’s all idle threats. Nothing for you to worry about, boss.” I take a drag of my cigarette and then ash it in an empty bottle on the table. “I’ve noticed something about you. Something I’ve been wanting to ask about but…never really knew if it was the time or place.”  
           “What’s that?” I ask after taking another drag of my smoke.  
           “Your hands. I notice they shake a lot. That some sort of nervous tick?” he asks, and I look to the hand holding the cigarette. Sure, it’s shaking, and much more noticeable with the smoke between my fingers.  
           I grip my palm and massage the area for a bit, but Gage’s gaze remains on me. “Uh…I guess so. I’m not too sure. It only started happening recently.”  
           “You sick or something?”  
           I chuckle. “No, nothing like that.” I study him for a moment, but his expectant stare leads me to believe he’s waiting for me to elaborate. Because a shaking Overboss, I’m sure, doesn’t instill a lot of faith. I sigh and put out my cigarette. “You ready for a bed time story?”  
           He smirks. “Yeah, all right,” he says while leaning back in his chair and kicking his boots up onto the table, and I almost smack them right back off. I hate when men do that sort of thing. But I refrain from correcting his poor manners. He is, for all intents and purposes, a raider. I take a deep breath and exhale forcefully, trying to find the point to begin. “So…remember how I said that my relations with the Brotherhood have been compromised?”  
           Gage focuses on me intently and then removes his feet from the table to lean forward, now much more interested in the story I’m about to tell. He nods. “Uh huh.”  
           “Yeah, well…that all started when Elder Maxson—the leader of the Brotherhood—ordered me to…execute a friend of mine. Paladin Danse. He was…the reason I started working for the Brotherhood, though the reason I stayed is much more complicated. Anyway, word got out that Paladin Danse was actually a synth. And the Brotherhood—they don’t much appreciate synths. Hate them with the passion, much like super mutants and ferals.”  
           “Who can blame ‘em?” Gage says. “If you ask me, the Brotherhood ain’t much different from a raider gang. Just try and act all official.”  
           He’s not wrong. But I have nothing against synths. At least, I didn’t at the time. “Whether he was a synth or not, Danse was my friend. So I refused to put him down. I managed to convince Elder Maxson to just…let him go, which he agreed to. Mostly because I told him if he killed Danse, I’d be gone too.”  
           “You were that important to the Brotherhood, huh?”  
           I scoff. “I thought I was. Sure, Maxson agreed to let Danse go. But he became an enemy of the Brotherhood. Maxson swore that if he ever came across Danse again, he’d kill him. But Danse being my friend, I couldn’t just send him out into the Wasteland. So I offered him a place at the Castle. The main hub of operations for the Minutemen.”  
           “That sure was nice of you, boss. Stupid, but…nice all the same.”  
           “Yeah, it was stupid. The Brotherhood caught wind of this. Sent in vertibirds to attack the Castle. The Minutemen, they’re formidable fighters. Got a lot of heat. And we won that fight, but…at the cost of something very dear to me.”  
           “They kill your friend?” Gage asks, and I nod.  
           “Not Paladin Danse. He made it out alive. But it just so happens, me and my friend Hancock were vising the Castle during the time of the attack. They gunned him down. Killed him right in front of me. He was…the best friend I’ve had since coming out of my 200 year coma, and…he died because of me.”  
           “Nah, the Brotherhood killed him.”  
           “His blood is on my hands.”  
           Gage is quiet for a moment. “So that’s why the Brotherhood turned on you? Because you were harboring a fugitive?”  
           I shake my head. “Actually, no. Elder Maxson had no idea I’d be at the Castle. Actually tried to make amends too. But…after what happened to Hancock, I just couldn’t be an ally to them anymore. But simply turning a cold shoulder to them wasn’t going to be enough. And the Minutemen, we’re packing some serious heat.”  
           “What do you mean?” he asks, somewhat intimidated.  
           “Scattered across the Commonwealth in select settlements of the Minutemen, we have artillery set up. All I had to do was give the command to take down the Prydwen, and within minutes, the Brotherhood’s main hub of operations turned into a pile of junk and scrap metal at the Boston Airport.”  
           “Shit, boss. All that because they killed your friend?” he asks.  
           “I’m very loyal to my friends, so keep that in mind.”  
           Gage smirks. “Oh, we friends now?”  
           “Not quite. But back to your point about my shaking hands, I’m not exactly sure why it happens. I just know that it started when I saw Hancock go down at the battle of the Castle. And it hasn’t stopped since.”  
           He’s quiet for a long time. Slowly, he leans forward to put out his cigarette. “Well, now I have another question for you.”  
           “Oh?”  
           He focuses on me intently. “Why tell me—a raider—private intel of the Minutemen? About all your…heavy artillery shacked up at your settlements. Because if you really do plan on leaving Nuka-World after all this is said and done…it just doesn’t seem like a smart move, boss.”  
           I smile. A wry smile because he’s caught on to the underlying message of my story. The moral, I should say. “Because I’m hoping you’ll see this as a warning, of sorts. A cautionary tale. I can keep the Minutemen away from your territory so long as you keep the raiders away from ours. And if for some reason you don’t feel like playing nice after all this, well…at least you know what happened to the last faction that tried to pull one over on me.”  
           Gage chuckles. “You threatening me, boss?”  
           “I’m educating you. And I hope you choose to keep the peace because believe it or not, I’m actually growing quite fond of you. It’d be a shame to have to put you down.”  
           He stares at me for a moment, entertained, it would seem. “You really are a piece of work, you know that? But damn…I ain’t ever met a woman like you.” He bites his lip while studying me, and for some reason, that small, insignificant act sends chills down my body. “Sure, I’ll play nice. But I’m hoping you’ll change your mind about leaving before the end of all this.”  
           “And why would I do that?”  
           He shrugs. “Might find something you like.” His words, I find somewhat disturbing, and I'm not exactly sure why. But after our little talk, I find it best to retire back to my side of the mountain and leave Gage to himself. But the entire night, I'm tossing and turning, wondering what he meant when he said I might find something I like. Because it has yet to be the case.


	9. A Child at Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett and Gage clear Kiddie Kingdom in an attempt to bring balance back to the gangs.*

        Gage and I decide that it might be best to skip over the bottling plant for now and clear Kiddie Kingdom before Mason retaliates in a much more heinous way than killing an Operator. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to see what tricks Kiddie Kingdom had up its sleeves because according to Gage, no one really knows.  
        We approach the entrance to Kiddie Kingdom, and before even reaching the gate, the Geiger counter on my Pip-boy starts ticking wildly. I glance at the device and then back at the entrance, curious about what could be emitting such a powerful source of radiation and how Gage and I plan on ridding the area of the poison in the air.  
        I turn away from the entrance and walk a few feet away to where my Geiger counter stops ticking. “Good thing we came prepared.” I say while setting my bag down and kneeling beside it to retrieve two hazmat suits from inside.  
        “I don’t like this. Not having armor is a bad idea,” Gage says.  
        “Yeah, well so is breathing in lung-fulls of radiation.”  
        I stand to start dawning my hazmat suit. “Hey, boss…can I have your ear for a sec before you get all dressed up?” I glance at him. Something seems to be bothering him, and I become curious as to what happened overnight to make him so pensive. Because he’s been quiet all morning.  
        “Something wrong?” I ask.  
        “Not at all. I just been wondering…after what happened last night with Mason, the things you said to him, well, I was impressed. You got some guts, boss, and…you make a pretty damn fine leader. But I know this whole operation really ain’t your thing. Helping raiders find some sort of stability—and after our talk about the Minutemen last night, it’s become clear where your loyalties lie.”  
        “I thought you said nothing was wrong,” I grumble.  
        “Nothing is wrong. I never really expect you to go in this thing headlong. Sure, I know you said you’d promise to help clear the parks, but since you’ve been here, you’ve been itching to leave. So I guess I’m just wondering where all that talk came from last night. With Mason. You spoke to him in a way that makes me think you actually care about what happens here in Nuka-World after you leave. And I’m not gonna lie—I kinda expected you to half-ass all this Overboss business. But it’s just not the case.”  
        I study him for a moment, but I feel a smirk spread across my face. “What…was the question again?”  
        “Heh. Yeah, that was a mouthful. But my question is…why? What’s behind all this for you?” he asks, and I’m not sure I want to tell him the truth. The truth being that my sole motivation is to keep him and his raider gangs as far away from the Commonwealth as possible. Because I have to trust him. I have to trust he’ll have my back in the throes of battle, and I’m not so sure he’ll be the sort of companion I need if I tell him this is all just a means to an end.  
        Sure, we spoke the previous night about him playing nice and not coming in to my territory, and I trust he won’t. An unpleasant conversation, one I was hoping to avoid from here on out.         “Because you asked for my help. And I don’t half-ass anything.”  
        “A raider asks for your help and you go all in to try and help him.” His entertained smirk fades into disappointment. “Nah, I’m not buyin’ it, boss.”  
        I contemplate. “You’re a person too. One that risked his neck to save my life. I repay my debts.”  
        “So this is all just something you feel you owe me,” he says.  
        “That bother you?”  
        He shakes his head. “No, boss. I wanted to know, and I wasn’t expecting anything more than that. I just…you ain’t like all the others I’ve run with. And you’re not a raider, I get that. But it still doesn’t stop you from kicking ass and taking what you want. It’s a good way to live, so long as it doesn’t get you killed.”  
        I consider. “One day it will.”  
        “Sure, one day. But I get the feeling that’s a long ways away for you. Most folks, they just sort of stumble through, managing to scrape together some shittly little life for themselves. They struggle every day, until something catches them off guard, and then that’s it. Lights out.”  
        Could this possibly be a bit of humanity shining through? “You feel bad for them?”  
        He shakes his head. “Nah. It ain’t my fault they’re not smart enough to do something different.” I don’t blame him. It’s not like I hold any of my settlement leaders in very high regard, relying on others to fight their battles for them. But Gage continues. “But then some folks see the world for how fucked up it is. And so they decide they gotta have it all, right now. All the booze, all the chems, all the caps, and they don’t care how they get it.” Yeah, they’re called raiders. But I bite my tongue. “In fact, if they can take it from others, they feel like they’re getting the upper hand. Only, they ain’t.” He draws me in with his last statement. Not at all the sort of outlook I expected Gage to have when he’s lived his life as a raider. “Fuckin’ raiders. They get so greedy, so focused on ‘right now’ they make shitty mistakes, and wind up dead. Hell, maybe some of them are trying to get killed.” He seems so disgusted when talking about raiders, and it kind of takes me off guard.  
        I feel my expression soften. “You seem to harbor a lot of animosity toward your kind,” I say softly.  
        “Most of ‘em don’t know how to act. And the people in this world, they either try too hard or not enough. Hell, maybe not at all. You and me though, we’re different. We know how to walk the line between fighting for what we deserve and getting out of control.”  
        “A raider with self-control. That’s one I haven’t seen before,” I joke.  
        “Heh. Yeah…we ain’t all so bad.”  
        I consider what he’s saying, and I actually believe him. Because from the moment I met Porter Gage, I knew he was different than most raiders. There was something about him—perhaps some good in him. The kind of good Macready possesses. Not exactly the bleeding-heart type, and they're ruthless when they need to be. But they possess control. And by the way Gage speaks, it seems like he has a pretty good understanding of the world and his place in it. And suddenly, everything about him makes sense.  
        “I won’t lie, Gage. It’s part of the reason I’m hoping for peace between us when I go back to the Commonwealth. I mean, a gang of raiders running Nuka-World can put anyone on edge, but…I dunno. I don’t look at you and just see a raider anymore. I don’t know if I ever did. Something about you leads me to believe that everything’s gonna be okay when I leave you in charge.”  
        “No, not me. Whoever you decide is the best man for the job, I suppose.”  
        “Well if I had it my way, it would be you. But…even knowing you’re behind the new guy in charge, it…it’ll help me sleep at night.”  
        He smiles weakly. “Thanks, boss.”  
        I smirk at him. “You still gonna call me boss when all this is said and done?”  
        He shrugs, but his smile fades. “Am I still gonna get to see you when all this is said and done?” I don’t know how to respond, and I sense a bit of disappointment in Gage at my hesitation to answer.  
        The sound of something walking up behind me, growling, grabs out attention though, and when I turn to look, my eyes land on a feral ghoul. Before I can even reach for my pistol though, a gunshot echoes throughout the park, and the feral drops to its knees.  
        I look to Gage, lowering his rifle as his eyes focus back on me. “We should probably head in now,” he mutters.  
        “Yeah…okay.”  
        Gage and I walk through Kiddie Kingdom, dawned in our hazmat suits, and it doesn’t take long to find that the biggest threat looming around each corner is ferals. Lots of them. Though ferals are easy enough to kill—being swarmed by them isn’t the way I enjoy fighting. Though I quickly pick up on Gage’s technique of shooting out their kneecaps and having them immobile before ending their miserable existence.  
        We can’t really speak, Gage and I. But it seems we understand each other enough to pick up on the signals we send to one another. Something that took months to develop with Macready.    The only other person where that sort of communication—an unspoken bond—came naturally with, was Nate.  
        The further we get into the park, the more I start to wonder about the source of the radiation. And if ferals really are our biggest threat. But while walking in the direction of one of the rides, I notice something suspicious. The misters in the park—one’s installed to keep guests cool on particularly hot days—they’re spraying radiation mist now. A green sort of mist that sends my Geiger counter into fits when too close.  
        I point it out to Gage, and he motions his head to a door hidden beneath one of the walkways leading to the castle. Perhaps access to the misters can be found somewhere inside, though now I know that someone is here, running the show. Someone much more threatening and intellectual than a bunch of ferals.  
        We enter the door and find ourselves in some sort of maintenance tunnel. But we walk slow—unsure of what might be lurking in the darkness ahead. We rely on touch at this point, being hardly able to see three feet in front of us because other than a few emergency lights scattered throughout the tunnel, we find ourselves mostly in patches of darkness.  
        I don’t like that we can barely hear anything in these suits. I don’t like how our peripheral vision is compromised. But while walking down the corridor, we come across a set of metal stairs leading into a flooded basement, of sorts. And I manage to hear someone speaking in the near distance.  
        I crouch down and hold my hand out to Gage, and he stops behind me.  
        “What are you doing out of costume? You know Nuka-World fires employees for breaking character,” I raspy voice says in the distance, and if it weren’t for the passion in his voice when he speaks, I might not have heard him at all.  
        But I become intrigued. This has to be the one running things because he’s speaking, something ferals cannot do. I creep down the metal stairs, and as much as I don’t want to, I enter the flooded area below. We move quietly through the water and back up another set of stairs that leads us to walkway and a door straight ahead.  
        “Yes, of course I’m kidding,” the voice says.  
        We approach the door, and I slowly twist the knob. I look to Gage and nod to him. He returns the gesture and raises his gun. When I swing the door open though, a puff of black smoke fills the room, startling me.  
        Gage fires his gun, and only then do I realize he put down a feral lurking inside. But that’s all we see inside. I remove my helmet. “What the hell was that?” I ask.  
        “I dunno,” Gage says while removing his helmet. “I coulda swore I heard someone talking though. And it sure as shit wasn’t that guy,” he says about the dead ghoul on the ground.  
        “You saw that black smoke, right?” I ask, and he nods. Strange. But my attention turns to a set of terminals lining the wall.  
        I plant myself in one of the chairs and do a bit of browsing before finding a way to access the misters. Shutting them down, it’s all too easy. “Well, the radiation shouldn’t be a problem anymore.”  
        “I dunno how you do it. Never really understood computers, if I’m being honest.”  
        “I have a degree in computer science.”  
        “What the hell’s a degree?”  
        I smirk while scanning through the computer, searching for any bit of information that might be of some assistance. “A certificate for higher education. Completely pointless in this day and age.”  
        “Doesn’t seem pointless if you managed to figure out how to shut off the misters,” he mutters.  
        “The degree is pointless. The education is not.” I exit the terminal and spin around in my chair. “Shall we?”  
        We keep on our hazmat suits while crossing through the flooded room again, and when we reach the door to exit, a slight hesitation exists between the two of us.  
        “You sure this worked?” he asks.  
        “Uh…hang on,” I say while creaking the door open. I peer my head outside to assure no attackers are waiting for me to make an appearance before stepping outside. I hold my wrist up and look to my Pip-boy, but my Geiger counter only makes a slight ticking sound. The radiation being picked up, it’s so slight. So miniscule, and I’m ready to do away with the hazmat suits. I pull mine off, and Gage exits the doorway. “Here,” I say while reaching into one of the pouches on my belt. I hand him a bottle of Radx. “Take some of these just in case. There still seems to be some lingering, but we should be fine.”  
        Gage takes the bottle and pours some of the pills into his hand before popping them into his mouth. He hands the bottle back to me and I take my own dose before we rip the hazmat suits from our bodies. “Damn things are hot as hell,” he grumbles while tossing his aside, and just a slight breeze blowing through, cooling me even more from the sweat on my body makes me sigh in relief.  
        We continue walking along with our guns in our hands, ready to kill anything that gets too close. But it’s almost as if shutting off the misters sentenced everything residing in the park to death because we hear nothing. “You gonna be all right without you armor?”  
        “Well…it’s not like ferals got guns or anything, so…I’m hopeful to make it out alive,” he says while walking ahead of me, and I smirk at his comment. Though I can’t help but admire him as he walks. Gage, he’s got a nice build to him. A really nice build—one I hardly ever noticed before.  
        Sure, I’ve seen him without armor before. But never in the brightness of the sun, and the rays reflect off the sweat on his massive arms. But I trip over something, and it knocks me to the ground with force. “Ah…” I groan.  
        “You trip over the air?” Gage asks with an amused smile, but I’m too focused on the cause of my clumsiness to appreciate his attempts at humor.  
        I look to the ground beneath me. “I didn’t realize we were walking on a track…” But I’m distracted by the sound of shuffling from a nearby bush. And then that visceral growl that comes from an all too familiar opponent.  
        I go to point my gun at the bush, but two ferals swarm Gage. And even though I know he can handle his own, I focus my gun at his attackers instead of my own. But it’s a stupid move, and before I know what’s happening, a feral charges at me, tripping over me as I remain on the ground.  
        The nasty creature falls on top of me, and the stench of him is awful. “Ugh!” I shout while holding its mouth away from me with my rifle. I roll us over—off the tracks—until I’m on top of the rotted, decayed creature. I raise my gun in the air and bash its head in, sending decomposed bits of gray matter onto my clothes.  
        But I focus my attention back on Gage. Seems I didn’t need to worry about him. With one feral already down, Gage melee’s the other away from him with his gun before exploding its head with a shot. He seems winded but unharmed, and I sigh in relief.  
        But my relief is short lived as I hear something fast approaching. The tracks, they begin shaking, and something coming up behind Gage at high speed grabs my attention. The fucking ride is working.  
        “Gage…” he turns to look at me, but I’m on my feet and tackling him off of the track before he even has a moment to register what’s happening. We hit the ground, hard, and Gage ends up on top of me from the force of our fall, causing us to roll away from the tracks.  
        “What the hell, boss?” But the car whizzing past us on the track at high speed forces him into the reality of the situation, and he looks down at me. “You okay?” he asks.  
        I groan. “Am I okay? You’re the one who almost got pulverized by a fucking rollercoaster.”  
        He chuckles. “You could have just told me to move.”  
        I sigh, exasperated. “Yeah…I panicked.”  
        “I see that.” He stares down at me. A thoughtful sort of expression in his gaze, but he’s crushing me. As much as I’m sure he appreciates me saving his life, he’s heavy. Like, I don’t even know how I managed to shove his ass off the tracks.  
        “Gage,” I groan.  
        “Yeah, boss?”  
        “You’re crushing me.”  
        He chuckles and then gets to his knees before holding his hand out to assist me to my feet. “Well, I said it before. You have a flare for the dramatics.”  
        I snicker. “Yeah, well…whatever keeps you alive. Don’t really feel like going at it alone.” I wipe my hands on my pants and scan the area of dead ferals around us. “Come on, let’s go.”  
        After walking through the park some more and killing off a few more ferals, we find ourselves at a funhouse. I lower my gun at the sight and wonder if I even want to know what’s hiding inside. Ferals, most likely. But worse than that, a funhouse doesn’t sound like the type of place to have a fair fight. I’m not sure about the one standing before me, but the last funhouse I went into, I was lost for over an hour.  
        “Best to just get it over with,” Gage says while approaching the entrance, and I begrudgingly follow behind.  
        Just as I suspected, as we enter, we find ourselves at the mouth of a maze of mirrors—though they look too dirty to really reflect anything. But it’s dark inside—not completely, but dark enough to where I rely on the use of my Pip-boy to further illuminate the way through the maze.  
        “We could be stuck in here for hours,” I say after taking yet another wrong turn to put us at a dead end. “I wonder if we can just break through the mirrors.”  
        Gage turns and presses against one of them. “Nah. It’s not real glass. And it feels like its reinforced by something. I dunno, a wall, or something.”  
        We turn and head back in the direction from which we came. But while passing a small alcove, a toy monkey on the ground catches my attention. Its eyes light up and it starts banging its little cymbals, and for a moment, I feel panic come over me. Some dark, foreboding sort of feeling. The sort of feeling I had while running through the gauntlet, and only then do I start to realize that I might be suffering from PTSD after the whole ordeal.  
        I feel Gage’s presence leave, but I can’t stop looking at the stupid monkey, wondering if it might be a warning for something ahead—like in the gauntlet.  
        My head starts to hurt. Flashes of the horrors that reside inside the gauntlet—the things I saw, had to come face to face with—it all comes rushing back to me. “Hey, boss?”  
        The sound of Gage’s voice coming from right behind me, startles me, and a scream manages to escape me. But Gage forces his hand over my mouth and pushes me back into one of the mirrors. “Shush,” he whispers. “You wanna just go ahead and let everyone know we’re here?” he says quietly.  
        My heart is pounding, but I manage to calm myself. Gage removes his hand from my mouth. “You startled me.”  
        “Sorry. But I found the way out,” he says.  
        The funhouse. What a misleading name. Sure, I imagine it might have been fun once upon a time, but with all the spinning tunnels, flashing lights, rooms set-up to make one think they’re walking sideways or upside down, it makes me sick. And then fighting ferals in these conditions—it makes me all the more resentful for whoever is running the show around here. Because I’m certain someone strategically put them all here.  
        We come to a door, and when Gage kicks it open, gun hot in his hands, my eyes become wide. I step into the doorway as he moves aside to allow me a better look. An entire room, spinning around like a god damn carousel with about four or five ferals inside. It’s hard to count when they keep spinning around.  
        And around the room, a series of closed door—and who knows which we’re supposed to take. A feral passes us as the room spins, growling and trying its best to claw at us as it does, and    Gage and I can’t help but chuckle.  
        “Well if this ain’t the most fucked up shit I’ve seen so far.”  
        I nudge him. “Have at it.”  
        “Nah, ladies first,” he says while backing away.  
        “I thought you said chivalry was dead,” I remind. Another feral passes, again, growling and trying to claw at us, and my laughter is hard to contain.  
        “I wouldn’t want to deny you the satisfaction, boss. Go for it,” Gage says, and I can’t help but smirk at him. Sure, there are ferals in the room. But they don’t seem like they’re doing a very good job of maintaining their balance, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to have a go in the spinning room.  
        I step through the doorway and onto the spinning floor, immediately throwing out my arms for balance as it kind of knocks me off a bit. “Shit…” I laugh. I start spinning around with the room, and it gives me the butterflies. The fun kind, and laughing proves hard to contain. But one of the ferals has set its sights on me, though not smart enough to realize it can’t move against the flow of the room so well.  
        I raise my gun to the thing. “Might be best to not go shooting ‘em in this room, boss,” Gage calls from the doorway, still having yet to enter.  
        “Yeah, you’re probably right.” I lower my gun to the ground and remove the knife from its sheath on my thigh. And when the thing lunges at me, I stick it deep into the side of its head. I have to use my boot as leverage to remove my knife.  
        “Well, that’s one,” Gage says as I pass.  
        “What are you doing? Get in here,” I call to him.  
        “Nah, that’s gonna make me sick as hell,” he calls after a feral charges at me.  
        I grab hold of the thing and throw it aside, sending it further away from me than normal gravity would allow. “Gage, come on,” I say. “It’s fun.”  
        “Don’t look fun,” he grumbles as I pass again.  
        I manage to take out another feral, almost falling over in the process as I do. And so long as I focus on my targets, I don’t get dizzy. It’s when I focus on the doors as I pass that I start feeling sick. Still, it’s quite fun, killing ferals this way. “Gage!” I yell playfully.  
        “Come on, boss. You don’t need me in there.”  
        “I do!”  
        He laughs. “You’re doin’ great. Keep it up.” But before I pass him again, I grab onto the doorway and pull myself back inside. “You done playin’ now?” he asks.  
        “No, we have to kill these things.”  
        “Best get back out there then.” I shake my head, flashing a devious smile at him as I grab his arm. “No…” he says.  
        “Come on,” I say, again in my playful manner.  
        “Boss…”  
        But I don’t let him finish. I pull Gage into the room with me, and immediately, he’s thrown off balance, taking the two of us down within seconds of being in the spinning room. But I can’t contain my laughter. Seeing a man like that come barreling down—having met his match in a spinning room in a funhouse—it’s too much.  
        “Oh my god!” I shout through fits of laughter. “You went down like a ton of bricks!”  
        “I fuckin’ took you down with me though…”  
        My eyes become wide at the side of a feral charging at us, but Gage manages to shoot it dead in the center of its eyes, and my laughter is in full swing now as it hits the ground. “I thought you said we shouldn’t shoot in here!”  
        He chuckles. “Yeah, I panicked.”  
        We manage to take out the last two ferals easy enough, but finding the door that leads to the exit of the spinning room is the real challenge. And my stomach starts to hurt from how much I’m laughing at our attempts to grab hold of one before passing it up.  
        “You check this one?” Gage asks.  
        “I don’t know!”  
        He flings it open, but the room pushes him past the door before he can see inside. “Shit,” he chuckles. Though when I come around, I manage to grab onto the doorway and pull myself through. I find myself in a corridor, and I’m confident it’s the way out.  
        I peer back into the doorway of the spinning room and extend my hand to Gage as he passes to help pull him through. But even after exiting the room, the corridor feels like its spinning, and I fall into the wall. “Oh my God, this sucks,” I laugh.  
        “I feel like I’m gonna hurl,” Gage mutters.  
        “Here, come here,” I say, and he grabs my hand. I pull him into the wall with me. “Sit down,” I say, and the two of us lower ourselves into a sitting position against the wall. “Just lean your head against the wall and close your eyes for a bit.”  
        He does as I tell him to, and the two of us fall silent for a bit. Slowly, it feels as though my bearings are coming back to me. “That help?” I ask while opening one eye to look at him, and he nods.  
        “Yeah, it does.” He’s quiet for a moment. “How’d you know to do that?” he asks while picking his head up, and I can assume he’s back to feeling normal.  
        I shrug. “Always used to work whenever I got too drunk and would get the spins.”  
        “You drink a lot?” he asks, unimpressed.  
        I smile. “I used to before the war. There would be some times where I’d hit the wine a bit too hard. Mix in some pot. And the room would start spinning. But…this is a way to anchor yourself. And it has yet to fail.”  
        “And now?” he asks, and I get the feeling he’s trying to determine my level of responsibility. Judge whether or not I have some sort of predisposition to addiction of some kind. Colter, I assume from the amount of empty liquor bottles and the chem station at Fizztop Mountain, had some kind of addiction.  
        I shake my head. “I’m with you. Dulls the senses. But that was part of its charm back in the day. When we didn’t have to worry about…monsters, raiders. People coming to kill us and take what’s ours. It was a lot safer back then. But I’d never dream of doing something so foolish now.”  
        Gage nods. “Well…good. I like knowing we’re on the same page.”  
        I watch him for a moment, but when he looks to me, I avert my attention to the ground. “We should probably keep moving.”  
        We find our way out of the funhouse and walk to a section of the park that we have yet to cover, but the ferals are in full swing. Gage and I fight hard to put them down, and we’ve mostly had to resort to our original technique of shooting out their kneecaps to immobilize them first. It seems like the battle is never-ending, and by the time we manage to clear the area in which we find ourselves, the sun is starting to set.  
        I’m winded at this point. Exhausted from fighting ferals all day. But Gage and I find the entrance to a theater in the castle, and as tired as I am and want to call it a day, I don’t like the idea of having to return tomorrow.  
        I glance at the marquee before entering. The name “Oswald the Outrageous” is on display, and I even see a poster of this Oswald outside of the theater, wearing a suit and top hat. A magician, it seems.  
        We enter the theater and find a few dead ferals on display in front of the stage, but it’s suspicious. Very suspicious. “Yeah, this is fine. I wasn’t planning on sleeping tonight anyway,” Gage says.  
        I scan the theater, but there doesn’t seem to be any threats lurking nearby. “Come on,” I say and make my way up to the stage. Still, nothing in sight. But an elevator with a blinking control pad in the wings of the stage distracts me. “You think there’s something up there?” I ask.  
        Gage shrugs. “Only one way to find out.”  
        The two of us take the elevator to the rooftop of the castle. It looks like a control area but opened up to the Nuka-World skyline where the sun paints the scene in a beautiful shade of pink. A gust of wind blows through, cooling me from the stifling heat from the theater. But my senses hardly have any time to bask in the ambience as I notice dead ferals laying all around the rooftop. “More dead ferals. Something’s up.”  
        Gage chuckles. “Maybe the lack of radiation killed ‘em off.”  
        I kneel down to examine one. Search for the cause of death. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s how that works.”  
        “A guy can dream, can’t he?”  
        But a puff of black smoke coming from a nearby metal ramp leading to a mezzanine distracts us, and I stand and move closer to Gage. A glowing ghoul wearing a suit and top hat appears through the smoke, and I can’t help but feel it’s Oswald the Outrageous after suffering from far too much radiation. “You raiders are all the same. You come into someone’s home, steal their belongings and kill those they care about. I’m not going to let you kill any more of my friends. This is our home, not yours.”  
        I open my mouth to speak, but before I can even get a word out, the ghoul throws his arms upward, and what looks like a green jolt of energy comes out of him and spreads throughout the rooftop. Gage and I back away from him, and I’m concerned about some kind of radiation he might have just emitted from himself, but when I feel something grab onto my boot, tripping me, knocking me back onto my ass, I notice that he just reanimated the corpses of the ferals on the rooftop.  
        “Oh my…” I start kicking the thing away as it claws to get up at me. And before Gage can even intervene, a puff of black smoke appears before him, and the glowing ghoul appears only feet from him.  
        I shoot the ghoul trying to get at me in the head and try and focus on Oswald as he attacks Gage with an electrified cane. But more ferals coming toward me dominates my attention, and I scramble to my feet.  
        I shoot them in the head, one after the other. Hoping to execute them quickly and make it over to Gage to assist, because by the sound of it, it seems like he’s having a hard time winning the fight against Oswald.  
        After taking out the last ghoul, I turn to Gage, but Oswald lands a blow to his leg, sending him down to his knee with a painful howl. “Gage!” I yell and focus my rifle on Oswald before firing a shot. Though the distance between the two of us and my shaking hands, I only manage to clip his shoulder.  
        Still, Oswald staggers to the side before throwing his hands into the air again, sending out that green burst of energy. And once again, the ferals are coming to play. “Son of a…” But Gage is back on his feet, focusing his efforts on Oswald once more.  
        A ghoul comes at me, I shoot it in the head. But two more come at me, and I manage to melee one to the ground before bashing its head in. But the second one manages to grab hold of me. It scratches at me, bites at me, forces me backwards to the ledge of the roof, and I do my best to keep its mouth away from me with my rifle, though I’m in no position to shoot the thing.  
I feel myself getting closer to the ledge of the roof. And as much as I need Gage’s help as more ferals approach, he’s all too preoccupied with Oswald. And by the looks of it—when I manage to get a look—Oswald is winning the fight.  
        He needs help. I need to put these ferals down in a way that Oswald can’t make them come back. I glance over my shoulder as the feral still fights to get at me. We’re so close to the ledge, I can almost feel myself going over. So with a forceful swing of my rifle, I manage to send the feral over the ledge.  
        My curiosity gets the better of me, and I peak over the side. Yeah, there’s no coming back from that. And while Gage remains preoccupied with Oswald, I start luring the other ferals toward me at the ledge before throwing them off the side as they get too close. And when one comes at me too fast, I shoot it in the head and then kick it over.  
        When the last one approaches, I bait the thing into launching for me before jumping out of the way to allow it to fall to the ground below. Finally, Gage and I can give Oswald a run for his money. “Gage!” I yell when I see him hit the ground after another attack from Oswald.  
        I go to run to him, but a puff of black smoke appearing in front of me keeps me in place. And my eyes meet with Oswald’s. “Now, that wasn’t very nice, throwing all my friends from the ledge.”  
        “Scarlett!” Gage yells, pain in his voice.  
        “It’s curtains for you,” Oswald says, and before I can even begin to appreciate the irony, Oswald lands a forceful kick to my stomach, knocking me back and over the ledge.  
        “No!” I hear Gage yell.  
        My stomach is sent into my throat, but my body reacts for me by releasing my rifle and grabbing hold of the nearby halyard from the flagpole. The force of my body as it comes to an abrupt stop—it feels like my arms are being ripped from my sockets. My hands burn from the rope burn I’ve acquired from my forceful grasp. And even though I managed to prolong the process of falling, I feel that I’m much too weak to pull myself back up the few feet I’ve fallen.  
        I look down at the ground below. If I fall—if I let go, it’ll be the end. No question, and I don’t expect even my rifle survived the fall. My hands are aching—burning from the rope digging into them as I hold onto it for dear life.  
        I attempt to pull myself up, but my arms are aching from the impact of me catching my weight on the halyard, though by the sounds of the fight happening above, it doesn’t seem like Gage will be able to come to my rescue any time soon. And if I don’t make it back up in time, I suspect Gage might lose the fight against Oswald.  
        “Shit,” I curse to myself. I’m panting, all my energy being put into keeping myself from falling. But I need to hurry. I glance down at the ground once more, if even for a second of considering letting go and just ending it all.  
        But I can’t. So I start pulling myself up the rope, and it takes everything in me to even get high enough to use my feet to assist. I hear gunshots from up above, but the fighting continues. It seems Oswald can take a few bullets.  
        I have to stop for a moment to catch my breath, but only just a moment before pulling myself up a bit more. And now that I’m high enough on the rope to use my feet as leverage, it takes a bit of the weight from my arms. Even still, my palms are burning. My arms are shaking, and when I finally reach the ledge, it takes all of my energy left in me to pull myself over and roll back onto level ground.  
        But Oswald remains distracted with Gage as he knocks him to the ground again and then smashes his electrified cane onto his back. Gage hollers in pain. And even though I no longer have my gun, I know I can’t sit this one out. Gage, he needs me.  
        I pull my knife from its sheath and sneak up behind Oswald. He goes to hit Gage again, but before he can, I stab my knife with all my force deep into the side of his head.  
Oswald becomes rigid. Green, glowing fluid seeps out of his head onto my hand. “Oh no,” he manages to say before sliding from my knife and hitting the ground where he lie motionless.  
        I stare down at him, certain that he’s dead. Panting and shaking from the fight I just had for my life. I look to my knife. Remnants from the glowing blood, and I wipe it on my pants before putting it back in its sheath.  
        “Scarlett?”  
        I look at Gage, and he seems stunned. Amazed to see me standing in front of him. “You okay?” I ask.  
        He exhales a shaky breath and then nods. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Gage stands, wincing from the aches and pains I’m sure he’s suffered from the fight, but his attention remains on me as he moves closer to me. “I saw you…go over the ledge, I…thought you…fell.”  
        “Yeah, I…managed to catch the halyard from the flagpole. Pull myself back up.”  
        He grabs my shoulder and pulls me into him before resting his forehead against mine, and I’m not really sure how to react. He exhales heavily against my face though. A sigh of relief, it seems. When he pulls back, he stares at me for a long time until a smirk spreads across his face. “You’re one little fuckin’ badass, you know that?”  
        I don’t much feel like one, to be honest. My body hurts, and I’m ready to head back to Nuka-Town and sleep forever, though time is not on our side. Tomorrow, we’re heading for the bottling plant.  
        After raising the Pack’s flag on the Kiddie Kingdom flagpole that saved my life, I stare out into the park that is Kiddie Kingdom, painted in orange and pink from the setting sun. And an overwhelming sense of sadness comes over me. Because it’s the sort of place Shaun would have loved as a kid. And I miss him so much it kills me. And even though I hardly consider his synth replacement to be my child, I find myself longing to hold him.


	10. Maybe (You'll think of me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett opens up to Gage and crosses a line that there's no coming back from. *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has major spoiler for the main quest storyline of Fallout 4, and things become sexually explicit toward the end.

        By the time we make it back to Nuka-Town, the sun has set completely, and only the warm glow from the fires scattered throughout the town and twinkle lights from the market and nest illuminate the environment. I climb aboard the makeshift elevator to bring me to my quarters, but Gage doesn’t follow. “You coming?” I ask.  
        “Nah, I’m gonna go check with Mason. See how things are sittin’ with him, now that his gang runs Kiddie Kingdom,” Gage says, sounding rather pleased. I smile and nod, knowing that our efforts might have just done the trick to ease the tension between the gangs. But there are still two parks to liberate, so I know that “balance” won’t last long. “You goin’ to sleep?” Gage asks before I push the button.  
        “I’ll be up for a little while. Licking my wounds and crying into my pillow.”  
        “Damn, woman. That’s depressing as hell.” I give him a laugh, and Gage smirks at me. “Well, I’ll check in with you in a bit. See if you need anything.”  
        I nod. “Okay. Tell Mason not to let his people go too crazy tonight. We still need people on patrol.”  
        “Will do, boss.”  
        I press the button and leave Gage to go have his little chat with Mason. But after entering into my quarters, my depression from Kiddie Kingdom returns to me. And I’m not sure if it’s because now I feel lonely or if I really desperately want to see Shaun. Even if he is a synth. But I start to wonder if Gage would even allow me to get a message out to the Commonwealth.  
        After tending to my wounds, I find myself sitting in one of the armchairs facing outward toward Nuka-Town. The glow from inside my quarters, it’s nothing compared to how lit up the market and the nest look from my vantage point. And in the distance, I can hear the sound of a party going on.  
        The pack must be celebrating.  
        But the sound of the lift grabs my attention, and Gage appears only minutes later. “Everything all peachy keen with the pack?” I ask.  
        “Mason sure seems happy, so that’s a good sign,” he says while stepping off the lift, and I’m pleased with the news. Perhaps we might be able to go a few days without any act of violence between gangs. But Gage lingers, and I divert my attention to him—wondering what it is he still feels he needs to say. “I been thinkin’, boss.”  
        I smile weakly. “Careful now, don’t hurt yourself.”  
        “Very funny. Seriously though. Now that the gangs each have a fair amount of territory, I been thinkin’ maybe we put off clearing out the last two parks for a few days.” I look at him questioningly. “It’s just…might be the last time things are this peaceful around here. It’d be nice to enjoy it while we can.”  
        He’s not wrong, but it only means I’ll be in Nuka-Town longer. I sigh. “If you think it’s best,” I say.  
        “I do. And it might not hurt to get a few day’s rest before going in and finishing everything up. You’ve hardly had time to rest since you’ve been here.”  
        “Sure, Gage. Whatever you say.”  
        Still, he lingers in my presence. “Everything all right, boss?”  
        “Everything’s fine.”  
        “Because you don’t seem as happy as I thought you’d be.”  
        I contemplate. He’s not wrong, and I’m unsure if I really enjoy him being able to see through me so well so early on. But after the day we had, I sense a closeness between Gage and I. One I can’t really put my finger on, and I don’t think it’s a good thing, necessarily. “Gage, I need you to do me a favor.”  
        “Oh yeah?” he asks.  
        I hesitate. Getting the words out, it proves to be difficult. Not even because of how Gage might react to my request to send a message to the Commonwealth. But because even if he does allow me to get a message to Shaun, I just don’t know what I’d say. But I need to say something. “I’d like…to send a message to…my son.”  
        He stares at me for a moment, emotionless. But after a couple seconds, I see the confusion in his eye, and his expression becomes somewhat pointed. “You have a son?”  
        I nod. “Well…sort of. I…I don’t know…” I stand and move to one of the windows overlooking the park. That warm glow in the darkness of it all, it’s comforting to me for some reason.  
        “Hey, boss…I get that you don’t liking talking about yourself. I don’t much like talking about my shit either. But…you gotta elaborate on this because I’m kinda at a loss right now. And I don’t know how to help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”  
        I scoff, but my eyes start to burn. And I know better than to show Gage that weakness that desperately wants to come pouring out of me. “Why would you want to help me?”  
        “You say you wanna get a message to your son. And far be it for me to keep a mother from her kid. But then you say you don’t know?” I don’t respond. “I’m hoping you can understand why it’s important for me to limit the number of messages you’re sending to the Commonwealth. We don’t need no damn Minutemen storming the gates. And, no offense, but I can’t help but think you’re lying when you say you have a son out there.”  
        “Why’s that?” I ask, but I am offended. So much so that I can’t help but stare at him with bitterness, accusing me of lying.  
        But Gage seems firm in his decision and his insistence on me being a liar. He shrugs. “You said your husband died 200 years ago. You’ve only been out of the vault, what, like six months?”  
        I sigh. “Gage, it’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand.”  
        “Jesus, woman. Just tell me. You’d be surprised at the kinda shit I can understand.” His tone, it’s firm. He’s not kidding around, and something tells me he won’t leave the conversation alone until I indulge him.  
        I sigh. “Look, I want to tell you. I can’t have you thinking I’m a liar. But it’s…a really long story. I don’t even know where to begin.”  
        Gage, without hesitation, sits in one of the armchairs facing me. “Take a seat,” he demands. “We got all the time in the world.”  
        But running over the events in my own head makes me exhausted. I move to the chair across from him and sit down, but I’m at a loss. So much has happened, and I’m not even sure which parts are necessary to tell. “You’re gonna get bored.”  
        “What makes you think anything that comes out of your mouth would ever bore me? Someone who’s lived to see the world before and after everything happened? And I’d be lying if I said I ain’t been itchin’ to know the gritty details of what brought you here.”  
        I force a weak smile. “Okay. The day my husband died, I…remember waking up in that cryogenic pod. But I was stuck inside, and…I remember seeing two people approach Nate’s chamber.    But Nate wasn’t alone. He was holding our baby, Shaun.” My eyes burn, and I hang my head. “God, he was only a few months old. Anyway, the man who opened Nate’s pod—Kellogg—he tried to take Shaun. Nate fought him. And it didn’t go over so well. He shot him in the head right in front of me. Took my baby. And I couldn’t do a thing to stop him.”  
        “Jesus,” Gage mutters.  
        “Anyway…I was put back to sleep, and…when I woke up, my pod opened. But everyone else was already dead. That malfunction I told you about. And Nate was dead…frozen that way. But I made a promise to him that I’d find our son.”  
        “And you found him,” Gage says, as if trying to wrap up the story early. As if trying to say “See? That didn’t take too long.”  
        “You’re getting ahead of me. I left the vault. Went back home to Sanctuary Hills. But the effects of the bombs, it was…I don’t even know how to begin to describe such a thing. I remember seeing the bombs fall. The flashes of light, the nuclear fallout coming toward us as we were lowered into the vault. But nothing could have prepared me for what happened to the world after.”  
        “I bet that was a crazy sight to see,” he says.  
        I nod. “Yeah. Anyway, I, uh…went out looking for answers. Stumbled upon some people holed up in Conchord. Preston Garvey and a few friends of his. I helped them out of a bad situation with some raiders. Told them about Sanctuary Hills. After that, Preston recruited me as one of his Minutemen. I figured, why not? I could use all the friends I can get out here. Someone has to know something about Shaun. And my travels led me to Diamond City where…I hired a private investigator. Told him about my husband’s killer. Said his name was Kellogg, and after some digging, we found out he worked for the Institute.”  
        “The Institute,” Gage says, unconvinced.  
        “Yeah, and…it’s at this point that I become friendly with the Brotherhood of Steel. Helped a few of their men out in a gunfight with some ferals. Me and a friend of mine, Hancock. They offered me a position, and I accepted. Mostly because I figured they could help me get into the Institute.”  
        “Did they?” Gage asks, and I nod.  
        “Yeah. I managed to find this guy by the name of Virgil hiding out in the Glowing Sea. Used to be a scientist for them before he went rogue. He told me the only way into the Institute was…teleportation, and the Brotherhood helped me build the device.”  
        “You been out to the Glowing Sea? And you’re still alive.”  
        “I’m not making any of this up, Gage.” I sigh. “I’m skimming here, all right? There’s just…too many details to tell you everything, but…basically, I got into the Institute.” Again, my eyes start to water. “I found Shaun,” I say with a bit of hopefulness in my voice. “Turns out he wasn’t a baby anymore. And the kidnapping? The…murder of my husband, it…it happened a lot longer ago than I originally thought.” Gage seems confused. “About sixty years longer.”  
        “Holy shit. So your kid, he’s…older than you?”  
        “No, he’s dead.”  
        Again, he’s confused. Gage sighs and runs his hands over his face. “You’re losing me here, boss.”  
        I nod. “I know. I told you it gets complicated. Turns out…whoever ran the Institute while my family was on ice, they…they wanted a pre-war specimen. Someone who hadn’t been tainted by all the radiation, in perfect health. And young enough to where they could be molded into something the Institute felt they needed.”  
        “So they took your boy,” Gage says.  
        “Yeah. And…he became the leader of the Institute. By the time I made it there, Shaun was in his sixties and dying. He wanted me to take over and run the Institute for him, but…I couldn’t. And I’m not really sure why I couldn’t. For the good of the Commonwealth, I guess.” Preston’s voice echoes throughout my mind. “I didn’t want to blow it up, you know. I didn’t want to ruin the most important thing in my son’s life.”  
        “Jesus, boss,” Gage sighs.  
        “You know the most fucked up thing about it all? When I found out he was running the Institute, I wasn’t even angry. I was fucking proud of him.” Tears burn my eyes, and I just can’t keep from crying. “I only did it because everyone told me it was the right thing to do. For the people of the Commonwealth,” I cry. “And damn me to hell, I regret it every single day. And I hate them, Gage. I hate them because they turned me on my own son.”  
        He’s quiet for a long time. “Damn,” he finally says. “If that ain’t the most fucked up shit I ever heard.”  
        I laugh, a far from amused sort of laugh. “Oh no, it gets worse. Shaun modeled a synth after himself. A ten-year old version—a part of him I never got to see. He made this…little synth for me, I guess, to make me feel like I still have a son. Or…somehow give me back something that was stolen from me. So now I have this little synthetic version of my son who’s not my son, but I have to pretend like he is because he doesn’t even know he’s a synth. And the worst part about it is, I fucking hate him. Because he’s a constant reminder of all the pain and suffering I’ve gone through. For the good of the Commonwealth.”  
        Gage seems disturbed. “So why do you keep him?”  
        “Because he thinks I’m his mom. What else can I do?”  
        He shakes his head. “I dunno, boss. That’s real fucked up.”  
        I laugh and wipe the tears from my face. “I can’t believe I just poured my heart out to a fucking raider.”  
        He’s quiet for a moment. Thinking intently about something. “That all I am to you?” he asks without even looking at me.  
        But his inquiry saddens me, and I start to realize that with Gage, I don’t necessarily have to pretend to be a hard ass. Not anymore. “No,” I say quietly, warranting a thoughtful gaze from him.  
        Gage’s lips are tight while considering something. Something that seems very hard for him to say out loud. “All right. I’ll get a message to your boy, if you want me to, boss. But I’m gonna need to read it first,” he says while standing.  
        “Thank you,” I mutter, though I doubt it’s loud enough for him to hear on his way across the room and through the door to his private quarters.  
        I attempt sleep once Gage has left, but I can’t. I’m tossing in turning—wracking my brain for anything to say to Shaun in my letter to him. But I can’t think of anything. Not anything worth saying because I’m not even sure if he’s able to comprehend that sort of emotion. There’s still so much about him as a synth I just don’t understand, and I don’t know if I want to. I’m afraid the truth will kill me.  
        My mind wanders to Macready. How in reality, I want to write him, but I know Gage would never allow that. But I need comfort from a friend right now. Because reliving everything to Gage, it’s taken its toll on me. I feel heavy, burdened. That emptiness I have inside of me from the loss of my child and my husband, it grows bigger, deeper, and much stronger than I’ve ever allowed it to before.  
        And now, I just want to numb the pain.  
        I sit up in bed and glance to the doors leading to Gage’s space, and I wonder if he’s sleeping. But even if he’s awake, I’m not sure what to even say to him. I don’t even know if I want to say anything to anyone. Maybe I just want to be in the presence of someone who cares. Or at least pretends to care.  
        I climb out of bed and make my way to the exit of my quarters. When I open the door, I peer my head inside and listen for the sound of Gage, up moving around. But other than the sound of fire crackling from within the room, I hear nothing.  
        I walk down the corridor leading to the main part of his room, and it’s mostly dark within—only one fire burning in the corner of the room, barely giving the room a faint glow. But Gage is in bed. Asleep, it seems, and I start to turn back and head for my quarters once more. But I don’t. Something stops me from retreating back to my room and sends me further into Gage’s room.      And before my rational self comes back to me, I’m already at his bedside.  
        He sleeps shirtless and on his stomach with his head turned toward me, still wearing his eyepatch, which, I find odd. But he looks peaceful, his hand tucked away under his pillow, and I feel the strong urge to touch him. I lower myself onto the edge of his bed and reach my hand for his shoulder. “Gage…” I whisper.  
        But before I can even make contact with his shoulder, Gage sits up and points a gun right under my chin.  
        I become frozen. The coldness of the metal pressing against my flesh, it steals words from my lips and air from my lungs. I look at Gage, and I see that his aggressiveness quickly fades into confusion. And then horror when he realizes his gun is pointed right at the neck of his Overboss.  
        He hesitates to speak and lowers the gun from my face. “Everything all right?”  
        “You sleep with a gun under your pillow?” I ask.  
        “Don’t you?”  
        I choose not to answer his question. Instead, I lean into him. And when my lips are inches away from his, he seems to pull back a bit. So I stop. For a moment. “You don’t need to protect yourself from me, Gage. I’m not going to hurt you,” I whisper against his lips. And this time when I lean into him, he doesn’t move.  
        I feel his breath against my lips, and I almost want to exist in this moment for much longer than I do. Because it’s been over two-hundred years since I’ve been this close to a man. But my eagerness and intrigue gets the better of me, and after a few seconds of anticipation from both ends, my lips brush against the softness of his.  
        He barely returns the gesture at first. But when I pull my lips away, Gage brings his hand to the side of my face and pulls me back for another, deeper kiss. The feeling of his tongue against mine, it sends chills down my body. The softness of his lips mixed with the roughness of his stubbled face, it ignites a fire inside of me. A burning desire I never thought I’d have the pleasure of knowing again.  
        He exhales heavily through the kiss and pulls me down on the bed beside him. And then we just lie there for a bit, kissing each other intermittently before looking into each other’s eyes, and it seems as though we’re unsure of how to continue. Me, not having initiated anything with a man in centuries. Him, unsure of what exactly it is I want from him.  
        “Is this okay?” I whisper between kisses, and Gage nods. But he won’t be the one to progress anything. I already know he won’t, and I don’t blame him. Because from what he understands of me, the things I’m doing right now just don’t make any sense.  
        And I am, for all intents and purposes, his Overboss.  
        I lean up into a sitting position, and for a brief second, I see a bit of desperation come from him as he reaches for me to come back. But when I remove my shirt—revealing myself to him—Gage exhales heavily once more, and the slight tug from him on my arm fades completely. He stares at me for a moment, and I watch him. Waiting to see if that’s enough permission to do something, but he still seems unsure.  
        I grab his hands and move them over my breasts, and his breath catches in his throat as he squirms under the blanket. Seems just that simple act has made him all the more eager for me to continue. “Is this okay?” I whisper, and Gage nods.  
        “Yes,” he whispers while running his hands over my breasts.  
        I lower myself back onto the bed beside him, and the two of us just kind of stare at each other for a moment. I feel a smile break across my face. And Gage, he seems like he doesn’t know how to react to such a thing. So I lean in and kiss him again, and in that moment, it seems he opens up to me completely—allowing me to kiss him so intently.  
        I feel one of his hands move to my waist. And then slowly down to my hip. He wants more from this, but he’s waiting for me to tell him it’s okay. And maybe he’s afraid it’ll ruin our professional relationship. It’s the only reason I can think he’d hold back in this moment. But I direct his hand in between my legs, and he starts rubbing me through my underwear.  
        It’s been so long that even that little bit of stimulation has my heart pounding and my skin ablaze. I break contact from his tender kiss and let out a moan, and Gage kisses my neck while moving his hand to the rim of my underwear. He lingers there for a bit, and I thrust my hips forward. A sort of invitation for him.  
        That unspoken bond shines through in this moment, and Gage reaches his hand inside my underwear and in between my legs again. He touches me softly—teases me for a moment before sliding one of his fingers inside of me, and I throw my head back and moan.  
        “You’re so wet, boss,” he says in a low, gruff voice.  
        “Scarlett,” I moan.  
        He pushes another finger inside of me, and my breath catches in my throat. “Scarlett,” he moans between his messy kisses along my neck. I’m on my back now, but Gage moves into my side. I feel his heart pounding against me, and his erection digging into my thigh as he grinds his body onto me.  
        He warms me from the inside out. With his firm body pressing against my side, his kisses and heavy breathing along my neck, and his fingers deep inside of me, stimulating a part of me I never thought would be reached ever again—I feel as though I’m melting into him. Becoming a part of him forever.  
        A dull, aching feeling forms inside of me where he continues to stimulate, and it causes my core to tighten. “Gage,” I moan.  
        “You gonna let me fuck you now?” he asks.  
        “Yes,” I say, and it sounds more like I’m begging him.  
        He removes his fingers from inside me and starts pulling my underwear down, and I do my best to assist. Within seconds, he’s in between my legs and completely naked, his erection pressing against my stomach as he leans over to kiss me again. But now, it’s more animalistic, the way he kisses. Our exchange, it becomes visceral. An innate reaction animals have when they find a suitable mate, only this isn’t for the purposes of reproduction. It’s an aching desire—a need for the two of us. A need to be loved, appreciated, understood…freed from something, though I’m sure neither of us would be able to know exactly what from.  
        Gage pushes himself up onto his hands and starts to guide himself into me. And only now do I manage to see his naked body over mine. Just the sight of him being vulnerable in that way, it makes my heart flutter. His body, perfect other than the numerous scars he has no doubt from living such a violent life.  
        But he’s firm, muscular. A beautifully sculpted man, he makes me swoon. My sweet prince of the raiders, and he’s in between my legs right now, only wanting me. At least for me. But my admiration of his body is interrupted by the feeling of the head of his erection pushing into me, and I throw my head back and moan. But Gage’s animalistic side takes over, and he doesn’t wait long to thrust himself into me completely.  
        “Ah,” I moan and wince in pain at the feeling of him entering inside of me. It is a painful thing, and I need a moment to accommodate his size because after not having sex for 200 hundred years, I might as well be a fucking virgin again.  
        Gage stops moving, but he looks down at me. Watches me squirm, wince in pain. And I can’t help but wonder if he likes seeing me that way. Watching me in this sort of pain, pain that only he’s inflicted in so many years. But the pain, it’s delicious. And after a few seconds of stillness, I move my hands to his hips and pull him deeper into me.  
        “Oh God…” I say as my breath catches in my throat, and I feel my face grow hot. Him being that deep inside of me, it’s like a force of electricity surging throughout my body, causing all my hairs to stand erect against his skin.  
        “Jesus Christ, Scarlett,” he groans as I dig my nails into him. He pulls back and thrusts into me again. And then again before lowering himself onto me.  
        I bring my arms around his neck, and he seems eager to have his mouth against mine again, practically devouring me and my screams of pleasure as his thrusts harder and faster into me. But Gage starts moaning through the kiss, and the sound is hauntingly beautiful—the sound of him being pleasured by my body.  
        “Fuck,” he curses after pulling inches away from my lips, and he stops moving.  
        “What’s wrong?” I ask, and Gage shakes his head. But he’s panting, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s finished. “Did you…?”  
        He shakes his head. “No, I just…you got me a little too excited is all.”  
        But my eagerness is getting the better of me, and judging by how good he feels, I know it won’t take me long to finish. I lean up and push him back onto the bed before straddling him. And within seconds, I’m working him back inside of me. This time, it’s his fingers digging into my side and his head being thrown back as he moans in pleasure.  
        I start riding him, and from this position, he reaches far into me, stimulating that perfect spot of him his fingers were so expertly able to reach. It’s in this moment that I feel high—no sort of remorse, regret, second thoughts about what we’re doing. If anything, I’m wondering what the hell took us so long. Because the desire I have for him right now, there’s no way it just came out of nowhere. It’s been building inside of me…inside of us for some time. I can tell by the way he watches me as I move on top of him.  
        “Scarlett…” he moans as he tightens his grip on me. But that aching desire, it builds in my chore again. And each move I make, it makes me more and more sensitive.  
        There’s something that he’s creating inside of me. A desperation—a need for release, and all because of him. “Oh…oh, Gage,” I moan.  
        “You like fucking me, boss?” he asks through his heavy panting.  
        “Yes,” I moan.  
        He groans. A booming sound from within the core of him. “Fuck…you gonna come for me?” he asks.  
        Yes, I most certainly am. And he knows I am. He tightens his grip on my waist and starts thrusting his hips upward into me, only further stimulating that perfect spot so deep inside of me.   And it intensifies that growing sensation.  
        And then it happens. It’s like I release myself onto him completely—everything I have inside of me. Love, hate, fear, aggression. The sort of visceral type of pleasure than sends me into another world. A world where it’s only the two of us ever again, and in this moment, I have such a deep appreciation and love for him.  
        “Gage,” I moan.  
        “That’s right, baby. Come for me…keep coming…” he grunts while thrusting up into me, and the pleasure is almost overwhelming as it moves outward to my extremities. All encompassing, and I almost become paralyzed from the feeling.  
        Gage leans upward and wraps his arms around me, pulling me tighter into him as he continues to thrust into me, and I lose myself in him completely. “Fuck, I’ve wanted to do this to you since the first time I saw you,” he grunts into my neck.  
        “Oh my God…” I say, my breath quivering. It’s so intense that I feel the strong urge to cry, for fucks sake.  
        I dig my nails into his shoulder. In involuntary reaction, and Gage winces. “Ah…” he moans, but he doesn’t tell me to stop. In fact, he wants me to keep going. “Don’t stop…I’m so close,” he pants while leaning back onto the bed. And even though riding him is giving me a bit of overstimulation, I just can’t deny myself the satisfaction of making him come.  
        But he wasn’t lying when he said he was close. And within seconds, Gage becomes tense. He lifts me off of him, and I watch as he stimulates himself until coming onto his stomach. And the look on his face—the sounds he makes while reaching that perfect moment, it makes me want to do it all over again.  
        But my moment of clarity hits me hard as our orgasms die down. And now I stare down at this man laying before me, and I feel regret. A sort of shameful feeling. And I think he notices. He hesitates to speak, but talking about what just happened…it’s the last thing I want to do.  
        I look away from him and gather my clothes to dress myself, but I don’t look at him. Even when I feel him sit up in bed, I keep my eyes away from him. “I’m sorry for waking you,” I say, but he doesn’t answer for what seems like forever.  
        “Damn,” he finally says. “That’s the fastest I’ve ever seen someone get dressed.”  
        “I, uh…I’m sorry,” I say and then stand from the bed to make my way back to my room where I wish to hide away in shame for the next couple hundred years.  
        I lie awake in bed, terrified that Gage might come in and demand an explanation or want to “talk” about what happened, but he never does. And after the exhilarating orgasm I had, sleeping proves to be much easier than before despite my guilt and my fear for what might happen. Because I know eventually, I’ll have to face him.


	11. From Now On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett and Gage have an awkward conversation before the time comes to take on World of Refreshment.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, all of those who caught up a while ago. I wanted to give people who aren't the fastest readers an opportunity to catch up. But in my true fashion, this isn't the only chapter being added this weekend.
> 
> So, as the description says, this chapter is when Scarlett heads to clear out World of Refreshment. Now, I was conflicted about writing parts about this chapter. On the one hand, the river inside World of Refreshment looks like Nuka-Cola Quantum. And in the Nuka-World song, it says "the rivers are made of quantum," but every time I've played the level, the cursor says it's water. So I'm really not sure what fluid exists inside the attraction, and anyone who knows for sure, please tell me because I just went with water.
> 
> Also, I'm fully aware that all these opponents in Nuka-World go by different names. Assaultrons are novatrons, mirelurks are nuka-lurks, etc, etc. However, I've decided to keep the original names of the creatures for the simple fact that I don't believe Scarlett would know to call them these things. Sure, we know because the game tells us. But it's not like Scarlett has VATS or anything. So...yes, I know their appropriate names. But having to explain why she and other characters would know any different seemed like a tangled web I didn't even want to begin to take on. So, for all you hardcore Fallout fans, please, spare me indignation. 
> 
> One last thing I feel I should have mentioned much earlier on, please do not take anything written in this piece as a word of advice for "in-game" playing. I've changed a number of things for the purposes of writing a narrative. Like throwing the ferals off the castle in Kiddie Kingdom, for example. YOU CANNOT DO THIS IN GAME. At least, I'm pretty sure you can't.

        Though I manage to get a few hours sleep, my dreams are of no comfort to me and the sins I’ve committed. I dream of Nate, and a subconscious sort of guilt is so overpowering that it awakes me before the sun has barely started to break over the mountains. And then I’m left with the severity of the situation. The things that happened between Gage and I the previous night. I, the leader of the Minutemen, had sex with a raider. And despite the disgust and remorse I feel toward myself, I can’t deny how much I enjoyed the feeling.  
        Which makes me hate myself even more.  
        “Oh God,” I whine quietly to myself while lying in bed, and the realization that I have to see Gage at some point during the day makes my heart race and my face burn. I’m embarrassed, and with every passing minute, I feel as though he’s going to come to talk about what happened. Or perhaps he’s more of a gentleman than that, though the thought makes me scoff. A raider and a gentleman? I don’t think such a thing exists.  
        I have more important things to worry about, I tell myself. Front and center—clearing the last two parks. Because the sooner they’re clear, the sooner I can leave and never have to see Gage again. And maybe I can pretend it never happened.  
        I get ready for the day and make my way to the market to stock up for the next raid at World of Refreshment. But according to Gage, all I have to worry about are mirelurks. And although I find the appearance of the irradiated crabs to be absolutely grotesque, putting them down has always proved to be easy enough.  
        I linger at the market though. Take my time while browsing for supplies—stocking up on ammo and water. “Gearing up for your next raid, boss?” Shelbie—one of the traders and, unfortunately so—a slave of the raiders of Nuka-World. I avoid making eye contact with the traders wearing slave collars. Mostly because I feel I should do something about them being enslaved, but my more practical self won’t allow me to even begin treading on that ground.  
        “Uh…yeah,” I say to her uncomfortably. I toss a sack of caps onto the counter. “I need a few boxes of shells and .308.”  
        “Sure thing,” she says while turning away from me to fetch my ammo.  
        “Got any grenades?” I ask.  
        “Sorry boss, no. But Aaron should have some in stock,” she says, and I cringe at the thought of having to speak to the guns and ammo dealer. It’s like he senses my guilt for their plight and my unwillingness to do anything. And he likes to the throw that in my face.  
        “What about stims?” I ask.  
        “Fresh out of those too. But Mackenzie should have everything you need as far as medical supplies,” Shelbie says while motioning to the shop next to hers. My eyes land on another trader wearing a slave collar, and I groan at the thought of having to deal with another disgruntled trader. I mostly try to stick with Shelbie for all my shopping needs. Mostly because she doesn’t make me feel bad for her situation.  
        At least, she doesn’t try to.  
        But I need stims. After gathering my supplies from Shelbie, I approach Mackenzie, trying my best to feel her out before getting too close. But her eyes land on me, and I almost just keep walking by. As if I never had any intention of speaking to her.  
        “Oh! Uh…hello, boss! Congratulations on taking out Colter…I’m, uh…sure you’ll do great,” she says, and I can sense the anxiety and fear coming from her. The sort of reaction that makes me want to engage conversation with her. Let her know I have no intentions of harming her.  
        “Er…thanks.” I study her for a moment. “Everything all right?”  
        “Sure, boss. Sorry I’m so nervous. I just don’t know where I stand with you and I don’t want to end up pissing you off,” she says, eliciting a weak smile from me. I open my mouth to speak, but she continues. “That, and, well…I’d be lying if I said we weren’t all wondering how you plan to run the place. I mean, this is your show now. You can do anything you want. You could run Nuka-World just like Colter…business as usual. Or…”  
        She hesitates to continue. “Or what?” I ask, but I already suspect she’ll ask for me to set her and the others free. Something I’d love to do if I didn’t think it’d come back on me and everyone I care about times three.  
        “You could, well, you know…” she leans forward, closer to me, and I mimic her actions. “You could get rid of the raiders if you don’t exactly agree with how they’re running the place.”  
        Her words leave me paralyzed, and I find myself looking over my shoulder at a passing Operator, no doubt looking over the operations of the market just like I asked. And then I’m not even sure what to say. Is this some kind of test? Or is this woman genuinely asking me to kill off ALL the raiders in Nuka-World, including Gage. The entire reason for me staying and helping clear the parks being that I didn’t want him to suffer at the hands of Nisha.  
        “No, I can’t do that,” I say. “But, um…I’ll see what I can do. Maybe there’s…some other way to help. But right now, I’m here for stimpacks.”  
        “Sure, boss. Sorry for stepping out of line, just…forget I said anything.”  
        She’s terrified of my response. Terrified that I might have her dealt with by the raiders. I can see it in her eyes. And to be honest, I feel conflicted. One the one hand, I want to help. Because slavery is bad. But on the other hand, I’ve grown weary of helping those who can’t seem to help themselves. Constantly putting my own life on the line just so they can have a better life. And I don’t even know them.  
        This issue, it’s something I’ll have to discuss with Gage, but I know I need to approach this with the upmost delicacy. Because I’m not here to change the way a raider lives. Doing so seems a futile errand. And if I’m being completely honest with myself, freeing the traders makes me feel the raiders at Nuka-World will have all the more reason to step out of line and wander into the Commonwealth in search of new servants.  
        I’ve never been so morally dissuaded in my entire life.  
        Well…I guess that’s not entirely true.  
        I make my way back to Fizztop Mountain with all my fresh supplies in tow. I only need to grab a few more things from my quarters before heading out to World of Refreshment. But at the sight of Gage standing outside the building, leaning on the wall while smoking a cigarette, I slow my pace.  
        There he is. The man who was naked and in between my legs just a few hours before, and I feel my face get hot at the sight of him. “Was wonderin’ where you ran off to,” he says as I slowly approach him.  
        “Uh…yeah, I just…needed to get some gear.”  
        Gage smirks. “You had to do that now?” he asks.  
        I turn my back to him and press the button for the lift, but Gage is awaiting my response, and I can’t outright ignore him. It’s childish. Especially since he really didn’t do anything wrong. I avoid looking at him. Mostly because the very sight of him makes me blush. Especially after the way he’s seen me. And the way I’ve seen him. “Uh…yeah. I’m gonna go ahead and…clear the bottling plant. Get it over with,” I say nonchalantly. And when the lift arrives, I’m so eager to climb aboard.  
        “Thought we decided it’s best to give it a few days,” Gage says, and I finally turn to face him after stepping onto the lift. He seems disturbed. Disappointed by something, and I certainly can relate.  
        “No, you decided. But I’d like to get it out of the way. Get you guys all set up so I can head back to Sanctuary.”  
        His arms are folded across his chest. Not a very welcoming stance, though I hardly expected anything less from him given the conversation. “Okay,” he says and then pushes himself off the wall to join me on the lift.  
        We say nothing, and I hesitate to press the button to go up. Being so close to him, it feels as though my skin ignites. And a growing, yearning sort of knot grows in my stomach. I can’t be so close to him. Not right now. Not with the demons he drags out of me chomping at the bit. Taking over my practical mind and turning it into something awful.  
        Having him stand next to me…close enough to where I can smell him—feel the warmth of him—it turns me into a monster. And now all I can think about is him on top of me, doing what he did to me last night.  
        This is the longest elevator ride of my life.  
        I feel his gaze move to me, but I refuse to look at him. I’m afraid that if I look into his piercing stare, I’ll cave. And Lord only knows how he’d handle that sort of thing. Perhaps with the same intemperance he had last night. Or perhaps the most embarrassing and shameful thing a woman has to suffer through—rejection.  
        The lift stops and Gage steps off to enter my quarters, but I give him a head start. I want to create as much distance between the two of us as humanly possible.  
        “I’ll get my gear together and meet you downstairs,” he says, and my heart starts pounding. And suddenly, I can’t control my own actions as I step off the lift and move closer to him.  
        “Gage,” I call, grabbing his attention. “I, uh…I think I’m gonna…do this one alone.”  
        His gaze, it turns cold. “Is that so?” he says, unimpressed and as more of a statement than anything. But I nod. “You really think that’s such a good idea?”  
        My breath quivers. Mostly because I’m finding it hard to breathe—hard to think with him looking at me so intently. Because I’m afraid I’ll say something stupid. I’m afraid I’ll look stupid in front of him, and the realization makes me loathe him. Because it’s in this moment that I realize exactly why I don’t want him around.  
        I actually like this guy. Like, a lot. This fucker—a raider—has reduced me to a swooning, love-sick teenage girl again. But he asked me a question. And he beckons a response with his expectant, disappointed gaze. “Uh…yeah, I…I need you here, actually. To make sure all hell doesn’t break loose when I give the park to the Operators,” I say with a chuckle. Smooth as fucking butter. “I mean, you saw what happened last time.”  
        But Gage isn’t buying it. That much I can tell. I divert my attention to my gear next to the bed and start making my way over to pack, but Gage lingers. “Hey, boss, can we talk?”  
        I wince shoving my supplies into my bag. And not in the most beneficial manner either. “Do we have to?”  
        “Yeah, I think we do.” I continue to pack, fearing the worst from our conversation. “Christ, can you at least look at me when I’m talkin’ to ya?”  
        I sigh and stand to my full height before turning to face him. “What do you want, Gage?” I ask delicately. Afraid that I’ll send him into a fit of anger for my behavior.  
        He studies me for a moment. No doubt trying to read my mind in some way. “Look, you obviously have something you want to say to me.”  
        “What makes you say that?”  
        “Don’t play dumb right now. We fucked last night. And it was fucking amazing, as much as you try and deny that to yourself. But this really ain’t the time to let your feelings cloud your better judgement.”  
        I scoff. “My feelings?”  
        “You’re pissed! I get it! But the only person you should be blamin’ for what happened is yourself. As I recall, it was you who climbed into my bed, took your clothes off, and started puttin’ my hands all over you.”  
        I raise my hand to silence him. “That’s enough.”  
        “You’re right, it is enough. Now can you go back to actin’ like the boss instead of some whiny little teenage girl?” His words stun me to my core. Mostly because it’s almost the exact same thought that passed through my mind only a few minutes before.  
        “Whiny?”  
        “You’re actin’ weird.”  
        “Because it is weird!”  
        “Only because you’re makin’ that way!” This time, it isn’t his words that silence me. It’s the look on his face. The sheer and utter disappointment. No, he doesn’t look ashamed. Not like how I’m certain I look. And I become convinced that the only thing Gage regrets about last night is having to deal with this moment right now. He sighs and then shrugs. “People fuck, boss. It ain’t nothin’ big.”  
        “It is to me.” And it’s not from lack of experience. I wasn’t exactly a virgin when I met my husband. But Gage being the first man I’ve been with in over 200 years. The first man I wanted since the death of my husband? It’s something he can’t even begin to understand. And me wanting him? It’s dangerous territory.  
        “I didn’t realize you were so uptight. Figured you’d be mature about all this. We’d carry on, business as usual. But now I can see I made a big mistake, not throwin’ your ass outta my bed.”  
        I feel like boiling over. I kind of do, actually, letting a loud, shrill scream escape me. “Just go!” I demand.  
        Gage, he seems disgusted by the sight of me. And now, I feel a heavy burden on my chest. A tightness that makes me want to scream and yell in annoyance and heartache. And not even just from losing any respect I had from Gage. But because of the loss of respect I have for myself.  
        Gage shrugs. “Whatever you say. Overboss.” He turns away from me and exits the room, slamming the door shut behind him.  
        I’m fuming though. I hardly got to say any of what I wanted to say to him, and in the midst of my “little tantrum” the only words I manage to yell to the closed doors is “I am not uptight!”  
        But Gage’s words resonate with me, and while making my way out to World of Refreshment, our conversation and the things we did the previous night are all I can think about. Everything that happened between us, it dominates my mind, which is absolutely horrible. And when I approach World of Refreshment, I start thinking that maybe doing this without Gage might be a terrible idea.  
        I tighten my grip on my rifle. “It’s just a few mirelurks,” I tell myself. Because if I can’t handle a few mirelurks, then what am I really doing leading a gang of raiders? The thought brings me some comfort, and I push forward toward World of Refreshment.  
        A good portion of the attraction is, much to my dismay, a water ride. A water ride that no longer has any working boats going through, and after about ten minutes of debating in my mind what other options I have to not be fighting in water, I realize that THIS is my only option. But the water only comes up to about knee level, and after entering World of Refreshment, I feel confident that water might not be cause for concern as the entire ride features level or dry ground on either side of the river’s path.  
        If push comes to shove, I’ll just seek refuge on dry ground. Because even though the water is only up to my knees, walking in water is difficult. Especially if I have to move quick. It’s true, the mirelurks have me at a disadvantage, but I am the one with the gun.  
        I contort my face to the awful smell lingering inside of the ride. The fishy sort of scent that comes when shellfish has gone bad. That mixed in with tepid water and the smell of mold growing within the structures, it has me feeling queasy. The air is thick, almost humid. Much like visiting an indoor pool pre-war, only the water has been around much longer without being cleaned.  
        But other than the ripples I create while walking through the water, nothing seems to be moving inside. I take it slow—observe my surroundings for any sort of possible threat I may have missed when my eyes land on nests of eggs scattered along the sides of the ride. And from what I can tell, there’s lots of them.  
        I approach one of the bundles, staring curiously at the thing. Sure, I could have figured the mirelurks would be breeding in their domain. But I’m curious about the state of the eggs, wondering if they’re even any good because I don’t see a mirelurk nearby, guarding her little bundle of joy.  
        I lean over to get a closer look at the eggs. The look new.  
        Well, new enough. But one of them starts shaking, and I suspect something inside is trying to get out. I feel my face contort in disgust before bringing my rifle up high to smash down on the thing, killing the little spawn inside. But my act of violence doesn’t go unnoticed. Seconds later, a few more of the eggs start shaking, and before I can crush them beneath my gun or boot, three little mirelurk spawns hatch, bursting out of their little eggs with such quickness and force that it sends me staggering back into the river.  
        I cringe at the sight of the little things coming at me, though it isn’t hard to kill them. And once they’re dead, I start to realize that I might have to destroy all the eggs hiding inside World of Refreshment. To be safe.  
        I start to do this, crushing all the eggs in sight while slowly making my way further into World of Refreshment, keeping my eyes peeled for a more threatening opponent. Not that I welcome such a challenge. Just that the further I get into World of Refreshment without coming across a mirelurk, the more I suspect they’re bundled together somewhere. And taking them out that way might prove to be difficult.  
        I only have one grenade and need to use it wisely. Preferably nowhere indoors.  
        After destroying my third nest—killing off any mirelurk spawns that manage to hatch in the process—I start to become very intrigued by the lack of mirelurks hanging around, protecting their spawns. But that’s when I feel something beneath my boots.  
        The ground next to me shakes, and an explosion of water by my side sends me backwards and into the water. The nasty, stale water, it soaks me. But before I can even begin to be disgusted with the feeling, my eyes fall onto a blue, glowing mirelurk as it emerges from the water. And I can’t help but notice that it looks bigger than other mirelurks I’ve encountered in the Commonwealth.  
        I start scooting myself back in the water, attempting to create some distance between me and the pinching claws coming at me before scrambling to my feet. But the fucker is fast, and even after I shoot it right in its core, its claws launch at me, piercing my arm.  
        “Ah,” I wince while jumping to the side to fire another shot, but still, my attempts seem to do nothing to weaken the glowing beast. I need my shotgun. Though I barely have a moment to grab it from my back before another attack comes right at my face.  
        I fall back into the shoulder of concrete that makes up the lining of the river. A laboratory display behind me seems the perfect place to continue the battle. Get me on elevated ground, but I only have a second to celebrate my luck. Climbing onto the display, it seems all too easy for the resilient mirelurk.  
        I manage to get a hold on my shotgun while circling the lab table in the display—doing my best to keep distance between me and my attacker. My shotgun manages to knock the creature back a bit, but this mama-lurk is angry, throwing attacks at me every second, and I can barely get away and fire at her in the process.  
        “God dammit,” I curse and run to the other side of the table before pulling myself up onto the counter. Something it seems the mirelurk can’t do. But even though I’m in a much better position to inflict attacks on the thing, I start to seriously regret taking on World of Refreshment on my own.  
        The mirelurk, it seems stronger than most. I fire four, five, six buck shots into the thing, and only on the seventh does it seem to really do some serious damage. And it’s only in that brief second of watching my attacker stagger backwards that I feel a sort of victory come over me. A moment where I think, this will all be over. And one more shot from my shotgun reduces the beast to nothing more than a dead, irradiated crab.  
        Though I hardly have time to revel in my victory. Because if any of the other mirelurks are as strong, I’ll be out of ammo before the job is done. Because my rifle just doesn’t appear to be strong enough.  
        I slowly climb off the counter and back away from the fading glow of the dead mirelurk on the ground before me. Assuring the thing is actually dead before turning my back on the beast.    Though as I reach the water’s edge again, another explosion of water reveals yet another mirelurk. “Son of a bitch.”  
        I manage to put down the mirelurk unscathed, but my luck with the others proves to be dwindling. Whether it be from exhaustion or from having to fight for survival in water, I’ve acquired more scrapes and bruises than any of the other parks—though I don’t want to admit it’s because Gage isn’t with me.  
        These mirelurks—they’ve mutated to a higher level. Manged to become stronger than their counterparts in the Commonwealth, for whatever reason. Maybe they’ve managed to get into the Nuka-Cola Quantum stash in the bottling plant. It would explain their glowing blue color. But by the time I start nearing the end of the river, I’m becoming desperate for supplies. With only a few shells left, I find myself picking locks and crates whenever I find them, in desperate search for any sort of weapon or more shotgun shells.  
        Though it proves to be a fool’s errand, and by the time I make it to the end of the river—having destroyed any egg I come across—I’ve been reduced to using my rifle again. I say reduced because it hardly seems to do anything to the mirelurks.  
        But I’m determined. The last thing I want to happen is to go limping back to Nuka-Town with my tail between my legs, telling Gage I failed to clear World of Refreshment. I round another corner of the ride, and a set of windows overlooking a factory area grabs my attention. I move to them and try to peer through the dirty, stained glass. And even though I can tell that it leads to the interworking’s of the bottling plant, the grime on the glass makes it difficult to see any possible threat lingering inside.  
        Please God, not more fucking mirelurks. Because I become convinced that if I have to take any more on, I’ll need to call it a day. Or maybe just go back for more shells and continue this cleansing process at night.  
        But the sound of something making waves in the water in which I stand sends my heart into my throat, and before I can even begin to face my attacker, something lands on my thigh. A sort of thick, viscous, brown fluid that smells absolutely horrendous. Rancid.  
        I look further down the river and see a mirelurk hunter fast approaching me, but before I can even raise my rifle to shoot it, the viscous fluid starts warming my thigh. And then, it starts burning.  
        I start panicking at the feeling, and my first reaction is to splash some of the nasty water onto the affected area. Though the venom eats through my pants, burning into my flesh and making the water only burn the area more intensely. “Ah!” I shout, but the hunter spews more of its venom. I manage to dodge the attack and start backing away—creating enough distance to fire a couple shots from my rifle into the thing.  
        And even though it seems the rifle is more effective on the hunter than the regular mirelurks, more venom launching at me sends a panic through me. I lower my gun and look to my right to see a hole in the cement wall. And even though I don’t know what’s inside, it’s my only opportunity to get away from the hunter and collect myself for a moment.  
        I duck inside and reload my gun. The water from the ride, it’s seeped inside of the lower entryway of the factory in which I find myself. And I can hear the hunter fast approaching, creating a small current in the water as it moves.  
        I brace myself and raise my rifle to the entryway. But a load “drone” sound followed by a bright red reflection of light outside of the entryway leaves me bewildered. It takes me a moment to realize what’s happening, but I recognize the sound. And the panic I feel after seeing the glow from the red light—it chills me to my core.  
        It’s an assaultron. I’ve never been more certain. And after I hear a loud splash from right outside the entryway, everything falls silent. The hunter, I assume to be dead, having met his match from the red hot lasers of the most terrifying piece of robotics I’ve ever had the displeasure of encountering.  
        I remain perfectly still for a moment. Listening as best I can for the sound of the assaultron. For any sign it detects my presence. But I hear the loud, metal footsteps push through the water, and it sounds as though it’s moving away from the hole in the wall where I’ve found a bit of solace.  
        I manage to breathe again when I know it’s far enough away, and I divert my attention to a metal set of stairs to my right. It seems to lead further into the bottling area, and even though the lack of ammunition for my most powerful weapon is scarce, I manage to find a bit of courage in myself to continue moving forward. Because I’ll be stuck here all night if I don’t find the courage to take on an assaultron and a few more mirelurks.  
        I walk slowly up the metal stairs, listening intently for any sign of threat. In the distance, I hear the assaultron booting up again, but it’s so far away from me that I feel no fear of being its intended target. If anything, it’s killing off more mirelurks. Something I very much appreciate.  
        I reach the top of the stairs and face my right. A corridor leading to a room on my left and a walkway on my right paints the only way through the factory, though I’m unsure which route might be the best. I contemplate for a moment before deciding to head into the room, but before I can even take a step, the sight of an assaultron exiting leaves me frozen.  
It stops within arm’s reach of me. “Anomaly detected,” its robotic voice says before turning its face to me. And that bright red laser of death, it starts booting up. It’s enough to make my heart stop beating. I raise my rifle, but the assaultron launches at me before I can fire a shot, knocking me off balance.  
        I try to regain my balance, but another incoming attack knocks me to my side and straight down the metal staircase. “No!” I shout and try to grab the railing, but the force of my fall is too much, and I’m sent tumbling down the steps.  
        I hit the water on the ground level below, choking a bit from a bit that managed to get into my airway. The wind, it’s knocked out of me, and my ankle is throbbing. But I hardly have time to wonder if I might have broken something. The bright red light from the assaultron lights up the room, and I find myself doing the only thing I have time to do in that moment, curling up to protect my head and neck.  
        I figure I’ll die in this moment, but other than the water around me turning scorching hot within a matter of seconds, I realize that the assaultron missed me and instead hit the water surrounding me, causing it to bubble up from the heat of the laser.  
        I grab my rifle and stagger to my feet. But the weight on my right foot is painful, and I limp as best I can out of the hole in the wall—leading me back to the river. I barely make it out before a spinning claw comes right at my face upon exiting, and I start to wonder if the assaultrons have a way of communicating with one another.  
        I scream at the sight of this assaultron standing in the river—its laser sights set on me and its spinning claws of death launching at my face. And with the closeness of my attacker, shooting it seems a futile thing to do. I melee the robot with the butt of my gun, right in its head, sending it off balance before landing another blow to the back of its head.  
        But I can hear the other assaultron approaching from the room in which I tried escaping. And I can’t take on two of them, not in such close distance. Not in water. I start limping away as fast as my body will allow, only turning to face the two approaching assaultrons when ready to fire.  
        An explosion of water coming from behind me distracts me though, and at the worst possible moment, a mirelurk managed to keep itself hidden until now. It throws one of its claws at me, and I dive to the side and hit the water to avoid the incoming attack. But the bright red light from one of the assaultrons hits the mirelurk’s shell, and rather astoundingly, the mirelurk turns its attention away from the easiest target. Me.  
        I scramble to my feet and back away from the scene of the mirelurk fast approaching the assaultrons, and despite their red hot lasers in full swing, it seems to do nothing to the mirelurk’s shell. I take the opportunity to back further away and climb into one of the displays. From here, I’m in the perfect position to fire at the assaultrons without the threat of immediate retaliation. And even when I land a hit on one of them, their attention remains on the attacking mirelurk. And for the first time since being in World of Refreshment, I’m thankful for the resilience of the irradiated crabs.  
        The mirelurk takes out one of the assaultron’s legs, knocking it to the ground. Giving me the perfect opportunity to pick it off before focusing my efforts on the last assaultron. Especially since the mirelurk seems to be growing weaker. But even a mighty opponent like the assaultron is no match for a mirelurk and my rifle, and it doesn’t take long before sparks start to fly and the assaultron falls into the water, completely motionless.  
        I lower my rifle for a moment, exhaling a breath of relief. But the weakened mirelurk’s attention comes back to me. And it’s fast approaching. I shoot at it, missing it, sending up splashes of water from my failed attempt. I shoot it again and miss again, the weight of my injuries making me less of a threat as every minute passes.  
        The mirelurk climbs into the display. It throws one of its claws at me, and the only thing I can do is turn away—protecting the more vital parts of my body. But it clips my back. A shooting pain goes down my spine, though it doesn’t stop me from swinging my rifle around to melee the thing once and then a second time to create some distance.  
        I fire my gun and back away. I keep doing this as the two of us circle the display, and before I know it, I’m in the river again—the water reaching my knees—making it difficult to get away in a hurry. But one more shot to the mirelurk’s core sends it backwards. And I almost don’t believe I made it out of all that alive.  
        I stare at the dead attackers laying around me, but I’m feeling far from victorious. My ankle is injured, deep cuts to my arms and back make my body ache, and the burn on my leg from the hunter’s venom is throbbing. I need to get out of here.  
        I’m somewhat put off by the sight of the sky fading into a burnt orange color as the sun begins to set, and even though I know it’s best to return to Nuka-Town, my pride won’t allow such a thing. Not until I know the area has been cleared.  
        I use a stimpak, but it only gives me a bit of strength back and does nothing to alleviate the pain throughout my body. Still, I find myself outdoors which means a much bigger playing field. More opportunities to get away if necessary.  
         I circle the bottling plant’s exterior—though I admit I move faster than I should. Because once the sun sets, I’ll have to leave. Fighting in the dark—it’s pointless and a great way to get killed, especially with my compromised vision and wounded ankle. I just won’t be able to see anything that might get in the way.  
        I make it to the back of the bottling plant unscathed and climb through a hole in a large cement wall that circles the loading bay and storage yard. A large, irradiated pond sits right in the middle of the yard, and I start to feel sick at the sight. Because god only knows how many mirelurks are hiding inside of that cesspool.  
        I contemplate using my grenade in this moment. Just pulling the pin and tossing it inside the pond, hoping to weaken anything that might exist within. I hear something approaching me from behind though. And then I feel something closing in on me. I turn to see two mirelurks have set their sights on me—their hiding place remaining a mystery. Slippery little fuckers.  
        I raise my rifle to begin shooting, but I see movement in my peripherals. Three more mirelurks approaching from the walkways of the exterior of the plant sends a panic through me. And now, I just need to find an area they can’t reach me. An area that’ll give me the upper hand.  
        I frantically search the yard for anything I can use, but the only thing that I find is a dilapidated looking shed at the far side of the yard. I run for it, as fast as I can with a wounded ankle. But my panic distracts me from anything in my way. I step on a rock causing me to twist my wounded ankle again, sending me to the ground with force.  
        I drop my rifle, but with the mirelurks fast approaching, I can’t get to it fast enough to also get away from them. I have to leave it behind for now, the realization making me want to cry. Because now all I have is my pistol on my leg. Something that I fear will do nothing to these beasts who want nothing more than to chop my head clean off.  
        Despite my wounded ankle, I manage to make it to the shed. But it’s small, and the amount of debris inside keeps me from really creating any distance between me and the doorway. And even though the entrance is too small for them to enter, it doesn’t stop them from sending their claws inside, swiping right at me.  
        I scream while trying to kick my way further into the shed—kicking away their incoming attacks every so often. But I can’t do this forever. And their attacks are so frequent that I can hardly even reach for the pistol on my thigh. And even when I manage to retrieve my only weapon, just as I suspected, it hardly does anything to them.  
        I’m panting. My heart is pounding. I feel as though I’m only prolonging the inevitable. Death by mirelurk. Not exactly the way in which I wanted to leave this world. One of the mirelurks claws clips my calf, and I shout in pain.  
        This can’t be the way I go out, I think to myself. I look up and over my shoulder to a small window at the back of the shed. The glass, covered with dirt and grime—barely allowing any of the sun’s fading light to break through.  
        But it’s all I have. After kicking at the mirelurks, dodging a few more of their attacks, I point my pistol at the window and shoot out the glass. I start pushing myself further back, something that takes a great amount of effort due to all the debris in my way. But one of the mirelurks manages to get its claws on the rim of Macready’s duster, and it pulls me closer.  
        I panic at the feeling of being dragged through the debris I worked so hard to clear. I remove my back pack and start undoing my belt and any other attachments on the duster to rip it off of myself before I get pulled in too close, though the sight of it being ripped to shreds once its left my body makes me feel even more discouraged.  
        I glance up at the window again and start pushing myself back once more. And only when I’m at a safe enough distance from the mirelurks do I start kicking the edge of the doorway. The wood being so weak, rotted, and decayed that it doesn’t take much to widen the hole with the help of the attacking mirelurks claws.  
        I push myself back even more when the entry widens enough to allow half of a mirelurk inside. And when they manage to take out the doorway completely, I grab onto the window pane—the remaining glass cutting into my hands, though a small price to pay for an escape route. I push myself onto the pane of the window and wait a moment for more of them to enter the shed before climbing outside and lowering myself onto the ground below.  
        But my hands are shaking, so much so that I almost can’t pull the pin from my one and only grenade. I bite the pin out instead before launching the grenade back into the window, and then I start running away from the shed as fast as my wounded ankle will allow before a loud explosion sends me down to the ground.  
        I feel the heat from the flames, debris flying all around me as I shield my face and neck from anything that might come flying at me from such a violent explosion. And only when everything seems to calm and all I hear is the crackling of flames, do I look over my shoulder.  
        Other than the weak fire that barely engulfs the shed, I see no movement. I slowly approach the destroyed structure, retrieving my rifle from the ground as I do. And along with the debris created from the explosion, I see the burning carcasses of my attacking mirelurks. All five of them. Dead as a fucking doornail. Along with all my supplies, but I suppose it’s better than being dead.  
        I focus my attention outward to the lake. And even though I know I’m no longer in any condition to fight, I’m curious about what other creatures may be lurking inside the pond. If even just to scope it out and return tomorrow. Simply telling Gage that the rest of my supplies got blown up. He can hardly fault me for that.  
        I approach the edge of the lake and stare out into the calm waters. It is ominously quiet and still. But the sun is setting, and I at least need to make it back to the edge of Kiddie Kingdom if I have any hopes of finding my way back to Nuka-Town. I turn away from the lake, pleased with my efforts to clear World of Refreshment, even though I suspect I’ll need to come scout the area again in the morning. And with more shotgun shells at my disposal, I feel hopeful to be done by noon and moving on to Safari Adventure.  
        I don’t make it far from the lake though. A giant explosion—the sound of ground breaking, it pulls my attention to the lake again, and I’m horrified to see a massive amount of water being splashed into the air, only to reveal the largest mirelurk I have ever seen in my entire life.  
        I am at a loss. A mirelurk queen, I can assume, though I’ve never seen one in real life. Only heard stories. But it’s so big and glowing that bright blue that I know better than to even attempt to take her on. I turn to run away, but my ankle is weak. It rolls, and I hit the ground, landing on my stomach so hard that it knocks the wind out of me.  
        “Shit!” I curse and start trying to pull myself away, but something splashes on my back. That same thick, viscous fluid from the hunter, only in a much larger amount. And it only takes seconds before it’s burning right into my flesh.  
        I feel the heat coming off of me. I smell the putrid scent of venom and burning flesh, and it’s so painful, so intense that I imagine it’s melting the skin right off my body. And I start screaming. The burns weaken me, and I’ve been reduced to grabbing fistfuls of dry earth to pull myself away from the lake.  
        More of the venom hits the ground next to me though, burning straight through the barren land, and I can only imagine what it’s doing to my back. Because the pain, it only gets worse, and I can’t keep from howling at the feeling.  
        But I have to move. I’ll die if I don’t. I use all the strength I have left in me to climb to my feet and limp toward the hole in the cement wall surrounding the yard of the bottling plant, but the mirelurk queen approaches. I can hear her. I can smell her, and when I reach the cement wall, she spits more of her venom at me, and even though she misses, the sight of the putrid, viscous fluid burning into the cement—it sends a sort of fear through me I’ve never known before. The kind where I’m certain I’ll die no matter what I do.  
        The pain in my back from my scorched flesh, it doesn’t go away, though by the time I make it back to Nuka-Town, it’s stopped progressing into something more. Or maybe I’m in shock. It’s hard to tell. But I limp through the gates of Nuka-Town, hunched over and moving even slower than before. Because with each step I take, more and more of my strength is being depleted.  
        The sun is completely gone now, and Nuka-Town is once more lit with the warm glow of the torches and twinkle lights, though I find no comfort in this warmth.  
I feel as though I’m on fire. And everything gets a bit hazy, no doubt from my elevated temperature. I black out every couple seconds, having to stop walking completely until my sight returns. And it’s only in those brief moments I manage to catch glimpses of raiders as I pass them. They move aside, staring at me, horrified. And if I can instill horror in a raider, I know that my appearance must be much worse than expected.  
        I approach Fizztop Mountain, but my knees buckle, and I fall onto the ground, groaning and wincing in pain. And even though my vision continues to fade in and out, I feel a group of people surround me.  
        “Well don’t all help at once,” Gage’s voice says, bringing me back into reality momentarily. I see him push through the crowd. He stands over me, displeased. “You gonna make it?” he asks.  
I shake my head. At least I think I do. “It’s…the end of the line for me, Gage,” I mutter, but I lose all sense of orientation, and I feel my face hit the ground. I don’t pass out. Just can’t really focus on balance or even holding myself up.  
        “All right, clear out. There ain’t nothin’ to see here. The boss is just exhausted,” Gage says, and I feel him move next to me. “Come on,” he mutters while bringing his arm around me, but even the feeling of his arm brushing against my back elicits a howl of pain.  
        “Stop!” I scream.  
        “Jesus, what the hell happened to you?” he asks, unimpressed.  
        I grip his armor. The only thing that grounds me, giving me some sort of orientation in the spinning, fucked up world that’s been created for me. “Fucking mirelurk queen,” I say weakly. At least I think I do. I’m not really sure if I’m even communicating with him at this point. In my mind, I know what I’m saying. But I remain unsure if my motor skills have been compromised.  
But Gage removes his armor, and I fall into him. I feel him grip one of my arms before lifting me over his shoulders. The way a fireman lifts the person he’s trying to save, and it seems all too easy for him to do.  
        Gage brings me to my quarters and places me on the bed on my stomach. It feels like only seconds pass before I’m whisked away into a world of darkness. Though I hear voices inside the room, and it pulls be back into the moment.  
        “This is really bad, boss,” Mackenzie says from my bedside, and I’m wondering if I’ve been rambling on this entire time. Because she seems to engage me in conversation like I hadn’t just been knocked out.  
        “How bad?” I manage to mutter with half my face pressed into my pillow.  
        “To be honest, I’m amazed you’re still alive,” she says. I’ve started drooling onto the pillow now, but it seems I’m able to register what’s happening around me much better than before. And when I see three empty stimpak syringes on the table, it all makes sense.  
        My eyes meet with Gage’s after I pick my head up though, and I feel nothing but embarrassment and shame for the state in which I returned. And then I notice I’m not wearing a shirt. Or a bra, so I lower myself back onto the bed to cling on to a bit of dignity. If I even have any left.  
        “She gonna make it?” Gage asks.  
        “Well, I’ve pumped her full of stimpaks and given her something to break the fever. But the burns on her back are…intense. My main concern is infection at this point. And pain control.”  
        A weak smile breaks across my face. “I don’t feel any pain.”  
        “Cuz you’re all drugged up,” Gage snaps.  
        “Pssht.” It’s all I have.  
        I feel a weight being lifted from the bed, and I open my eyes to see Mackenzie standing and moving away from my bedside. “She’s going to be off her feet for a bit while her ankle heels. But the burns on her back require constant medical supervision. Cleaning, and the application of this cream,” Mackenzie says. She hands it to Gage, and I groan at the thought of him playing nurse.  
        “How long?” Gage asks.  
        “A couple weeks for her ankle. About another week for her back. We’re looking at three weeks minimum.”  
        “Well ain’t that just fuckin’ grand,” Gage says sharply.  
        “I’ll, uh…do what I can to help hurry along the process. And I’ll leave some supplies for when I’m not here. Who knows? Maybe she’ll make a fast comeback.” I sense the nervousness in her voice again. She must be afraid of Gage. “Anyway, I should…head back to the market.”  
        “Yep. Thanks, doc,” Gage says, and I cringe at the idea of being left alone with him. I hear Mackenzie leave on the lift, and with her gone, I feel it’s best to try and fall asleep. Avoid having the awkward conversation with Gage about how I really fucked this one up. But after a few moments pass, I still feel Gage’s presence.  
        I open my eyes to look at him. And he’s staring at me intently—that same disappointment and disgust on his face. “Don’t you dare say it,” I warn.  
        “I didn’t say shit.”  
        “I know what you’re thinking,” I say, defeated.  
        “You a mind reader now?”  
        I scoff. “Yes. The mirelurk queen’s venom gave me special powers, and now I can see everything you’re thinking.”  
        “This some kinda joke to you?”  
        I’m put off by his reaction, honestly. If anything, I thought he’d be gloating about the fact that I almost died without him, but Gage seems just as angry and displeased as this morning, if not more. “No…”  
        “Because the only thing I find funny about all this is you went out to World of Refreshment on your own for a stupid ass reason. Almost got yourself killed all because you wanted to get outta here faster. And now you’ll be here even longer.”  
        The realization makes me feel sick. Or maybe it’s the venom. Either way, he’s not wrong. In my attempt to hurry along the process of leaving, I’ve managed to secure my place in Nuka-World for at least a month. “Hooray for you,” I grumble.  
        “Yeah…that probably woulda been my thinking a few days ago. But maybe from now on you’ll learn to take my advice. Because you didn’t even clear it, did ya?”  
        I can’t lie to him. I shake my head slightly. “No.”  
        “So all that for nothin’.”  
        I roll my eyes. “Fuck off, Gage,” I say weakly. My grogginess from the medicine finally kicking in, making me sleepier and also…not really as eloquent.  
        “What’s that?” he asks.  
        I swallow hard. “I said, fuck off…” I start trailing off. “I’m not…your little pet project. And you…can’t tell me what to do…how to do it…when to do it…”  
        “Oh, for the love of…go to sleep. You ain’t makin’ any god damn sense, woman,” he says and then storms out of my room, though he doesn’t slam the door shut behind him. In fact, he leaves it wide open.  
        I want to close the door. Shut him out completely, but my weakness keeps me bed ridden, and my eyes become heavy. Within seconds, everything goes black.


	12. Long Live the Overboss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *The gangs pay tribute to the Overboss, and Scarlett gets a visit from an old friend.*

        I’m ripped out of my slumber by someone violently yanking my blankets from me. And when I manage to gather myself, I see Gage standing at the foot of my bed. “Rise and shine, boss. You’ve got a visitor,” he says coldly.  
        I barely pick my head up and look around the room. The pink glow of the sun shining through the windows hardly does anything to light my surroundings. “What time is it?”  
        “What time is it? It’s late,” Gage says. “You’ve been sleeping for almost a full twenty-four hours.” He tosses a stimpak on the bed beside me. “Take that. You look like hell, and I can’t have any more of the raiders seeing you like this.”  
        I struggle to grab the stimpak while keeping my chest buried into the mattress. “Well maybe now isn’t the best time for visitors,” I grumble while injecting myself with the stim.  
        “You’re gonna want to see this one. Now put some clothes on.”  
        The burns on my back are excruciating, and I become irritated that Gage thinks now is the best time for me to entertain a guest. Especially since the simple act of putting on a shirt makes me wince in pain. I manage to hobble over to one of the armchairs in the seating area, hopefully to give off the illusion that I’m not nearly as bad as how I may have looked while limping back to Nuka-Town the previous night.  
        Once I’m seated and somewhat put together, Gage exits the room for a brief moment. And when he returns, he has a woman at his side. Short, brown hair, and dawned in The Operator’s signature armor. “Overboss,” she says with a smile on her face, and just her voice alone confounds the hell out of me. She seems sweet. Her voice being quiet and welcoming. Not at all what one would expect from a raider, but I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. The Operators continue to confound me.  
        I struggle to stand and extend my hand to the woman as she approaches. “Pleased to meet you, Miss…?”  
        “Lizzie Wyath.”  
        Ah. “You help run The Operators.”  
        “That’s correct.” I lower myself back into my armchair, and Lizzie takes the seat across from me. “We certainly do appreciate you thinking of us to head up Galactic Zone as well as the market. And you’ll be happy to know that the goings-on of the park in your absence has been relatively uneventful.”  
        “Sure. All things considered,” I say, remembering the dead Operator from a few days ago, though I’m sure she’s buttering me up for some reason. Or maybe she doesn’t want to admit that her gang might be at fault for something going horribly wrong.  
        Lizzie smiles politely. “We’ve reached an understanding with the Pack. Seems your little chat with Mason worked wonders. And it’s because of our appreciation that when word spread about your recent injuries, I managed to put a few things together for you,” she says while lowering a bag to the ground to reach inside. “Something to…hurry along the healing process.”  
        “You some sort of doctor?” I ask.  
        “A chemist, actually. Though I do have a working knowledge of medicine.” Her response warrants a smirk from me. Why the Operators ever became raiders is beyond me. But Lizzie removes a vile from her bag and holds it up between her thumb and index finger, a proud smile on her face. “This concoction required a bit of the venom that caused your burns, and believe me when I say that it’s not going to tickle going in. But any antibodies remaining from your attack will be wiped out completely within a matter of days if you stick to the regimen—thus hurrying along your body’s cleansing process.”  
        She hands me the vile, and I study the thing. “Injection?”  
        “Right into one of your veins. Though I have to admit, the side-effects come with good and bad.”  
        “Okay. What’s the bad?” I ask.  
        “During the cycle of use, vertigo, sensitivity to light, blurred vision, as well hormonal imbalance might occur. Increased heart rate and difficulty breathing have also been reported, but it usually clears up after the second or third dose. You might find yourself becoming more susceptible to fits of rage, or even worse, depression. But it won’t last, and you’ll only need to take this over the next week.” I glance at Gage. Fits of rage, huh? This could be bad.  
        “So what’s the good?”  
        “The good is that due to the presence of the venom, your body will build quite the effective immunity toward any further attacks of this nature. It’ll still burn your flesh, so I wouldn’t recommend exposure if you can avoid it, but the neurological effects will be practically non-existent, and it even repairs the damage already done.”  
        I’m beyond impressed. “Wow.”  
        Lizzie reaches into her bag again. “The next thing I have is an ointment. The recipe is something I’ve had brewing for a while, but I’ve upped the dosage for your case.” She hands me a glass container with a thick, yellow paste inside. “Apply this to the wounds on your back, and within days, the burns will start to heal. And the probability of tissue scarring is greatly reduced.” She hands me the jar, and I unscrew it to smell. An awful smell, one comparable to the venom that caused this whole mess.  
        “Side effects?”  
        “Hardly any, I’m pleased to say. Though it doesn’t smell all that wonderful, and because of the increased dose present, it also won’t feel very good going on. You might feel a burning sensation along your wounds…probably quite similar to how you felt within the first few seconds of your attack. But that only means that it’s working. Now, I’ve only had the opportunity to test this on smaller burns, so the healing time is approximate. I’d say about a week, give or take a few days. But I’d be interested to know the details of your recovery to further my research on these sorts of attacks.”  
        “What about application? Will it burn my hands?”  
        She smiles. “No, it won’t. The ointment only works on affected areas, and the burning you feel comes from the wounded flesh existing on your body. I’ve made sure that intact skin is protected.”  
        I’m not exactly thrilled about the prospect of being in excruciating pain for the next week, but if it’ll get me back on track to getting out of Nuka-World in less than a month, I suppose it’s really the only way. “And about my ankle?” I ask.  
        “I’m sorry to say that’s one injury that needs to heel on its own, but at least it isn’t broken,” she says.  
        “Well, thank you for your help, Lizzie. I appreciate the effort you put into all this.”  
        “All I ask is that you remember the Operators for the next park you claim.”  
        I smile and nod to her, and the two of us stand to shake hands before Gage shows her the way out. I study the vile that I’m supposed to inject with a set of needles Lizzie leaves with Gage. But the vile shakes in my quivering hands, and I notice that my shakiness has gotten worse, no doubt from the pain I’m suffering.  
        I decide not to start taking Lizzie’s medications until the next day, much to Gage’s dismay, but he relents on skipping an argument when I tell him that I need more rest and that I doubt I’ll be getting any if I’m suffering through her treatments for the next week or so. Yet even with the pain medication I take before returning to bed, within hours, I’m tossing and turning, groaning in pain.  
        My eyes shoot open, and I’m in a cold sweat. My entire body shivers, my teeth chatter, and no position I move into gives me any relief from my discomfort. “Need somethin’, boss?”  
        I pick my head up and see Gage sitting in one of the armchairs, cleaning his gun. It’s dark outside, the only light in the room coming from a fire built in one of the trash cans. “What are you doing in here?”  
        “Keepin’ an eye on you.”  
        I groan and rest my head back on my pillow. “You don’t need to do that.”  
        “It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.”  
        He manages to make me chuckle, the bastard. But my amusement is short lived as I roll onto my side and groan in pain. I don’t even care about exposing myself to him anymore at this point because even wearing a shirt is painful. “I’m in a lot of pain, Gage,” I say through clenched teeth.  
        “Well, you certainly look it.” He sets his gun down and stands to make his way to the counter in the middle of the room. Within minutes, he’s at my bedside with a few pills in his hand and a box of purified water. “Take these,” he says, but I’m skeptical.  
        “Trying to put me out of my misery?”  
        “If I wanted you dead I’d put a bullet in your head,” he grumbles, and I take the pills from him. But they take a while to kick in, and I spend the better part of the evening, tossing and turning, whining and writhing in pain, only finding the peace to sleep as the sky turns light blue.  
        But Gage doesn’t let me sleep for long. “I don’t know how you survived this long, sleeping that soundly,” he says while standing over me, and I hate that he feels it necessary to rip me from my sleep whenever he sees fit.  
        “Consider it a sign of trust.”  
        But he hardly listens to me. “Seems the other gangs caught wind of Lizzie Wyath coming through when the Overboss needed her. Took it as a sign that they needed to step up their game.”  
        I look up at him questioningly. “What?”  
        He shrugs, but a smirk on his face leads me to believe nothing bad has happened to Lizzie, so that’s good. “I guess they felt the needed to pay tribute in some way. Don’t want the Operators gettin’ an upperhand on ‘em.”  
        I’m growing impatient. “What are you talking about, Gage?”  
        He turns away from me and fetches a bright pink rifle from the counter to hold it up for me. I raise an eyebrow to the thing. “Mason sent this over this morning. Calls it the ‘problem solver,’” he says.  
        I sit up in bed and pull my blanket around my chest. “It’s pink.”  
        “Yeah…thought you might like that.”  
        “I hate pink.”  
        “Well, it’s yours now,” he says while placing the gun back on the counter. “And if you can believe it, your best friend of the Disciples sent a present too.” He brings me a sheathed blade, and when I pull it from its case, a shiny hunting knife is revealed with jagged edges. Though a very nice weapon, I hardly enjoy using knives to do my dirty work.  
        “Hmmm.” I put the blade back in its sheath and place it on the nightstand next to my bed. “I guess it’s one less weapon at her disposal.”  
        “I, uh…got you something too,” Gage mutters, but his words gather my undivided attention. He seems embarrassed by saying it though, and I can’t hide a smirk.  
        “You shouldn’t have,” I say with a wry smile, further embarrassing him and his attempts to actually play nice in my weakened state.  
        “You don’t even know what it is yet.” I sit upright and hold my hands out to him, awaiting my “tribute” from him. “Nah, get up,” he says, and I’m not sure if I want it anymore. But he senses my apprehension. “Shit, I ain’t gonna do nothin’ to ya, boss.”  
        I hesitate to stand, and Gage offers me his arm for balance as I do while attempting to keep my blanket wrapped around me. But putting weight on my ankle is still unbearable, and Gage senses that I’m not the most stable on my feet. He walks me to one of the armchairs and assists me as I lower myself into a sitting position.  
        I watch him move to fetch something from behind the counter again, but this time, it’s a large, folded up piece of white cloth. “What is that?” I ask.  
        He moves to the bed and unfolds what I can now see are fresh linens. I watch him in amazement as he starts draping the sheet over the dirty, dingy mattress I’d been sleeping on since my arrival in Nuka-World. But along with the sheet, two pillow cases and a large handmade quilt to go on top. “I had these brought in for you. Didn’t too much like the idea of your…open wounds rubbing up against the filth on that mattress. Figured it might make you sicker, if anything.”  
        But words fail me. All I know is, Gage’s gift to me far surpasses any of the other tributes. And he isn’t even trying to get territory out of me. He turns to me when he’s finished covering the bed and then holds his hand out to me. I limp over to him, but the sight of clean sheets and blankets make my eyes water. It’s so fucking nice, something I would never have expected from him. “Gage, this is…the sweetest thing…”  
        “Now don’t go gettin’ all sappy on me,” he says when he notices how he’s moved me. “The doc said we need to keep your wounds clean. And the sooner you get better, the sooner we can get back to business.”  
        Okay, so not a gesture from the kindness of his heart, but I’m thrilled just the same. I climb onto the bed, reveling in the feeling of fresh linens against my body. “Oh man,” I muse. “Call it what you will. This is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”  
        “Well that’s pretty shitty.” I chuckle and roll onto my stomach, gripping one of the pillows into my chest as I do. “Well…figure I should let you get some more sleep. But you need to start taking the medicine Lizzie gave you when you wake up.”  
        “I thought it was my job to be giving the orders.”  
        “Yeah…I don’t think you’re really in a positon to be making the important calls right now. But hopefully that’ll change by the end of the week if you start taking the medicine.”  
        I turn away from him and wave my hand to him. Letting him know that I’m all over it. When I decide to wake up. Gage leaves me shortly after that, saying something about checking in with the liberated parks.  
        I manage to get a few hours of sleep, but my pain medication wears off somewhere in the midst of a dream about a vacation Nate and I took right before Shaun was born. A vacation to Florida, and it’s one of the nicest escapes I’ve had the pleasure to experience since my time in the Commonwealth.  
        But the pain coming back to me in full force rips me from my sleep, and once again, I find myself in darkness, writhing and groaning in my bed. I pick my head up and look around the room, but Gage is nowhere in sight.  
        “Gage?” I call, but I hear no response. “Gage!” I call a bit louder, and then I fall silent to attempt hearing movement from the next room, but nothing. Seems Gage has yet to return from his tour around the park.  
        I use all my effort to push myself up and move to the edge of the bed. I take a few deep breaths and grab the nightstand next to me for support while standing, but I’m wobbly on my feet. And after a few moments of catching my breath and allowing my body to stabilize, I start limping toward the counter where my medication has been stashed.  
        I struggle to open the pain medication. And in my annoyance, I’m tempted to just check the bottle from the upper level, but it’s just anger talking. I need the pain pills as much as I need another stimpak. I grab one and inject myself before attempting the bottle again, and when it’s opened, I take two of them. But rationale being that if I’m to start Lizzie’s regimen, I’ll need as much help as I can get managing the pain.  
        I manage to find some thin material stashed away in one of the suitcases. It feels and looks as though it used to be the cloth lining of a dress, and I can’t help but wonder what Colter was doing with such a thing. But I start ripping it to shreds—using the larger bits as a bandeau to wrap around my breasts and pinning it in place with bobby pins.  
        I lower myself into one of the armchairs and use the remaining bits of cloth to wrap my ankle. Tight enough to give support, but loose enough to not cause compromised circulation. And then I just sit there, staring at Lizzie’s vile of medicine and ointment resting on the small table in front of me. Never have I been so scared of something so little in my entire life.  
        I contemplate waiting for Gage to come back, but the thought makes me loathe myself. Because what sort of comfort can Gage give me? And why is he the first person that comes to mind? Even before our relationship was compromised, he wasn’t exactly the comforting type. Not like Macready. Though I’ve never really needed the comforting type. I find a bit of courage in myself to grab one of the syringes Lizzie left and fill it with the medication from the vile.  
        I use my belt to warp around my bicep—using my teeth to tighten my makeshift tourniquet and then start pumping my fist until a vein pops out of the crook of my arm. Though my hands are shaking while the needle lingers over the vein, and my heart is pounding. Even though my pain meds managed to take the edge off, I can’t help but feel they’ll be futile once I inject this serum into my blood.  
        It’ll be worth it in the end, I tell myself. I insert the needle into my arm and slowly push the serum into my vein, and at first, a wave of heat comes over me. And then it’s like the most euphoric feeling I’ve ever encountered encompassing my body and making me feel as though I’m floating in the clouds.  
        My eyes flutter as I drop the needle and remove my tourniquet. I lean back in the armchair, gripping my forearm tightly as I do. But I feel nothing in the way of discomfort. No, instead, all the pain seems to leave my body through my fingertips. And I’m content on sitting in that armchair for the rest of my life.  
        But then a prickling sensation at the injection sight forces my eyes open. And then it’s like my arm is on fire. I pick my head up and look to my arm. Red splotches start forming around the area when the serum went in, and then it moves outward to the rest of my veins. I wince in pain and start massaging the area, but it only causes further discomfort.  
        Soon, that burning inside of me moves to every inch of my body. And when I look at my arms, I see that the redness has taken form in my veins. The sort of look one would see after being struck by lightning. I am burning alive from the inside out, and my heart starts pounding at the feeling. But a weight on my chest—a sort of build-up of pressure makes it difficult for me to catch my breath. At first, these afflictions are a minor nuisance, and I’m able to somewhat calm myself by thinking that it’s supposed to happen. Lizzie said this would happen. But then the pain, it becomes unfathomable, and I start losing all sense of orientation and grip on reality from the intensity.  
        I fall to the ground and start howling, screaming, somehow thinking that the louder I scream, the more I’ll purge myself of the pain. But nothing helps. And I’m certain that the pain alone will kill me. “Gage!” I scream, and I’m not sure why I do that. I guess it’s in the way that people will cling to anything when suffering so badly.  
        I start dragging myself across the floor toward the entrance to Gage’s quarters, but any movement intensifies the pain. I turn onto my back and grab fistfuls of the rug I’ve pulled myself to. And then I become feral. As if some sort of demon has taken over my body and is fighting to break free, tearing through my flesh in a desperate attempt. I scream so loud that my voice strains. And then, I start fading in and out. And enough though I’m desperately clinging to the bit of light I can see, everything goes black within a matter of seconds.  
        I don’t know how much time passes before I hear him. But that raspy, cool tone of voice, it’s all too familiar. “Well, well, well…you know, I have to admit. I never thought I’d see you in a place like this.”  
        I force my eyes open and pick my head up slightly to look toward the bar, but my lethargy makes it hard to focus. “Hancock?”  
        “They really did a number on you, didn’t they? I don’t know what you’d expect from a gang of raiders though.”  
        I shake my head slightly. “It’s not…like that,” I say while closing my eyes once more. Because this fucked up dream of mine—I don’t want to be a part of it.  
        “What’s it like then?” he asks, so clearly and loud enough to where I can’t ignore his presence. Because it all seems too real.  
        “I’m just…doing what I think is best. Trying to…secure the future of…”  
        “The Commonwealth?” he asks, and I nod. “Come on, sister. No one’s buying that. Not even you. Why do you think I’m here?”  
        “My conscience manifesting itself into something tangible?”  
        Hancock laughs. “Tangible enough.”  
        I can’t contain a grin even through the prospect of possibly passing on in this moment. Because why else would I hallucinate seeing my dead friend? “Who would have thought my Jiminy Cricket would take the form of a chem-addicted ghoul,” I groan.  
        “Come on, now. I haven’t used in almost three weeks,” he says, followed by that deep, raspy chuckle he always used to do when amusing himself. Though I find it far from amusing.  
        “That’s not funny,” I say through clenched teeth.  
        “No, I guess it’s not. But back to what I was saying. You admit that what you’re doing is morally corrupt.” I don’t respond. Sure, helping a gang of raiders was never something I intended, but I feel as though my intentions are pure. To keep them at bay in Nuka-World. Though judging by the manifestation of my conscience, it seems I’m slowly starting to see otherwise.  
        I exhale heavily, now feeling as though I can breathe. But my eyes start to burn with tears. “You know what they say. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”  
        “Yeah, but you don’t really see that Porter Gage as your enemy, do ya? You’re trying to help him. Save him for some reason. I’ll tell ya, he ain’t worth the effort. You think he’d do the same for you?” Again, I don’t respond. Because I’m not exactly sure about Gage’s intentions. “I think it’s about time we take up the good doctor on her proposition.”  
        “What?” I ask.  
        “There’s nothing good that will come of you helping the raiders in Nuka-World. I think it’s best to put them out of their misery. And the rest of the Commonwealth’s.” I study Hancock—watch him while he grabs a pistol—my pistol—from the counter top. He stands and makes his way over to me before kneeling down next to me. “Looks like it’s open season here at Nuka-World.” And when he hands me the pistol, I take it from him. “If someone needs help, we help them. If someone needs hurting, we hurt them. It ain’t that hard.” I study the pistol in my hand, wondering how I’m going to go about all of this. “Boss?” Hancock says, but he’s never called me that before.  
        “Boss?”  
        I open my eyes and pick my head up to see Gage kneeling next to me. But Hancock is nowhere in sight. I grab onto Gage to pull myself into a sitting position, frantically searching the room for any sign of Hancock, but he’s nowhere to be found.  
        “Is there someone else here?” I ask, and Gage gives me a strange look. “When did you get here?”  
        “Just now. Saw you lyin’ on the floor, mumblin’ to yourself. You all right?” he asks, but I don’t respond. My conversation with Hancock, it felt so real. “Figure you’d rather just end it all now?” Gage asks, snapping me from my thoughts, and when I look at him, I see that he’s looking at the pistol in my hand.  
        He doesn’t suspect I’ll kill him. He doesn’t think this pistol was intended for him at all, and if I wanted the raiders dead, now would be the perfect time to start in on the attack with Gage so close to me, trusting me in a way I never thought a raider could. But the look of concern on his face for me and my current state makes me retreat, and I drop the pistol to the ground. “I need your help, Gage.”  
        We sit at the counter, my back to Gage. I slowly start to unwrap the bandeau to reveal my back to him, and gage sighs. “Looks like it’s gettin’ worse.”  
        “That’s why I need you to put the ointment on. I can’t reach.”  
        “Yeah…okay.”  
        I feel his presence grow closer as he scoots his stool forward. He unscrews the cap and sets the jar on the counter, and I brace myself for the worst. But Gage’s hand on my back mixed with the coolness of the ointment, it doesn’t provoke pain. Instead, a bit of comfort. The sort of tender touch I didn’t realize I needed. And the ointment, it tingles my skin, though I don’t feel heat radiating from my wounds. Instead, it’s refreshing.  
        I let out a quivering breath, relieved that the pain might not come. Or maybe the intense pain I felt from the serum was so much more intense that I hardly notice the discomfort from the ointment.  
        Gage continues to rub the ointment on my back, and I’m moved by his willingness to help me. Even if only to get me back to the state in which I’m useful to him, his presence soothes me. And the kindness he’s shown since my return from World of Refreshment was something I didn’t expect, what with the new linens and eagerness to help in any way he can. I convince myself that he does care, and not just for his own selfish needs. Because if he didn’t care, these things he does for me—they never would have occurred to him.  
        And my guilt becomes overwhelming. The way I acted—treated him after the two of us became intimate with one another. And then my hallucination of Hancock. My subconscious telling me to kill him—it burdens my mind. Because the truth is, I don’t want Gage dead. Not in the least.  
        “I’m sorry, Gage.”  
        “For what?” he asks.  
        I hesitate to continue. Even though I feel a closeness with him, talking to him about more personal matters always proves to be awkward. “I’m sorry for the way I acted…after…”  
        “It’s fine, boss. You didn’t hurt my feelings none.”  
        I roll my eyes. “Really, Gage? Not at all?”  
        He sighs. “Okay…you might’ve bruised my ego a bit, but it’s nothin’ I can’t handle. Just wish the two of us would’ve had more of the foresight to see it ending badly.”  
        I pause, and Gage continues to rub the ointment onto my back. Still, the pain has yet to come, and I feel like I have so much to say before it does. “I don’t regret what we did,” I say quietly. “I just…didn’t know how to handle the things it…made me feel.”  
        “We don’t have to talk about this,” he mutters.  
        “I feel like I should tell you though, I…don’t blame you. You gave me what I wanted, and…it was wrong of me to make you feel the way I did.”  
        “Okay, boss,” he says, and I can tell I’m making him feel uncomfortable.  
        “Scarlett,” I correct. I know that I should end the conversation. Because by the way Gage is acting, he doesn’t care to hear anymore. And I’ll admit that the sappiness of the conversation even makes my skin crawl. But I feel as though my relationship with Gage will be forever strained if I don’t make amends. And then I’ll never be able to trust him, which my conscience tries to convince me is a good thing. “Look, you have to understand that…I hadn’t been with a man in over 200 years. And the last person I was with was my husband, so…”  
        “I was the first man you fucked in 200 years,” he says, unconvinced.  
        “Don’t…use that word.”  
        “Why? Does it offend your delicate sensibilities?” he scoffs and then removes his hand from my back to put the lid back on the ointment.  
        “No. I just think there’s a better way to describe what happened between us.”  
        “What, making love?” He laughs, and I feel my face grow warm from embarrassment.  
        “No,” I say sharply. “Like you could ever love someone.”  
        “You say that like it’s supposed to hurt my feelings.”  
        “Can you just stop with the tough guy routine? I know that I…pissed you off, pushed you away from me. But I’m trying to make it right, Gage. Now, I’m not usually the type to wear my heart on my sleeve, but I’m also not the type to leave important things unsaid. Because we could all die tomorrow.” But my back feels like it ignites, and as much as I try to push away the pain in order to finish the conversation, my heart starts pounding.  
        I wince and grab onto Gage’s thigh, squeezing tightly as I do. A reaction I didn’t have the time to consider before doing. But when I feel his hand move to mine and grip me tightly, it seems as though the pain disappears for a moment. I release his thigh and grab hold of his hand, and he returns the gesture, allowing me to squeeze as tightly as I need.  
        “All right, Scarlett. I care about ya. Don’t want anything bad to happen to ya. And I hate seein’ you like this, really. But I can’t help but feel you deserve it after the shit you pulled before going off to the bottling plant.”  
        My breath quivers. A monumental moment, Gage admitting his true feelings to me. Even if he’s admitting to being pissed off still. It’s something. “Are you ever going to forgive me?”  
        “Yeah…maybe when you start feelin’ better and start actin’ like the woman I know you are. I ain’t gonna walk out on you over this, but I’d like us to get things back on track. We make a good team, so…stop tryin’ to fuck it up.”  
        I manage to smile, but the pain in my back is intense, and my smile turns into a grimace rather hastily. “I’ll make this right,” I say through clenched teeth, and Gage’s grip on my hand tightens.  
        “I sure hope so. But that’s enough of that.”  
        “Do you regret what we did?” I ask.  
        Gage sighs. “That’s all you’re gettin’ outta me tonight, boss.” He releases my hand and stands to move across the room. When his back is to me, I take the opportunity to wrap my bandeau around myself again. And even though there is still a lot of tension between Gage and I, I manage to find a bit of comfort knowing that I haven’t ruined our professional relationship forever.  
        Because that’s all it needs to be from here on out.


	13. Honesty Hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *As Scarlett gets back on her feet, Gage makes it a point for the two of them to start being honest with one another.*

        My days blur together. They become one big mess, and distinguishing reality from dreams becomes more and more difficult with each dose of Lizzie’s serum. A part of me feels this is all an elaborate scheme to slowly kill me off. To poison me, remove me from power—something clever enough for the Operators to be guilty of because no one would suspect any foul play.  
        I recall Lizzie coming to visit to check in and see how treatment is going. I tell her about a little side effect she forgot to mention. The hallucinations.  
        “Fascinating,” she says. “No doubt due to the increased dosage for such a massive wound. I’m curious to know…what did you hallucinate?”  
        I glance to Gage, waiting eagerly to hear my response, it seems. But I can’t tell them about Hancock. About the things my conscience tells me to do. I shake my head. “I, uh…my husband. I saw my husband.”  
        But I didn’t see Hancock again after the first night. And my hallucinations start dwindling after three days, having been reduced to seeing monsters that aren’t present and Gage assuring me that I’m just seeing things.  
        Six days into the treatment, the pain begins to subside. And even though my grip on reality hasn’t quite yet returned in full swing, I’m starting to see things a bit more clearly. With the end of the serum cycle nearing its end and the ointment running on nearly empty, Gage becomes hopeful that I’ll be up and about in a matter of days. And I can’t recall a time since our talk that he hasn’t been by my side. Even while I’m sleeping. I’ll awake to find him doing something in my quarters.  
        “If you need anything, just let me know,” he continues to say, and I can’t help but feel that my talk with him the first night of treatment might have worked wonders despite his insistence to not have to discuss such matters any further. But his presence and his insistence to get me anything I need assures me that things are getting better between the two of us.  
        On the eighth day, my mind becomes clear. And other than the lethargy I feel from my body working overtime to heal itself, I’m able to register the world and events around me. “How’s it look?” I ask Gage after removing my bandeau to have him study the wounds.  
        “Looks a lot better. You got some scarring, but Lizzie said they’ll fade over time.”  
        I sigh in relief. “That’s comforting.”  
        I feel Gage’s fingers on my back. He trails them lightly across my flesh, and the gesture intrigues me. “This shit is amazing,” he says and then removes his fingers from me. He walks to the other side of the room, and I wrap the bandeau around myself once more. “How’s your ankle?” he asks.  
        “It’s still a little sore, but…Mackenzie managed to scrounge up a wrap for me. At least I can put weight on it now. I’m thinking about reinforces my boot with a bit of metal though. Just to give me more support so we can finally go clear out the bottling plant.”  
        “Yeah…you don’t need to worry about that,” Gage says, and I turn on my stool to look at him, questioningly.  
        “We have to kill the mirelurk queen, Gage. She could spawn more if we…”  
        “She’s been put down, boss. The bottling plant’s all clear.”  
        I’m taken aback by his response. “How…did that happen?”  
        Gage shrugs. “After what happened to ya, I rounded up a couple members of the Pack to go out there with me and take her down. Twenty raiders against a mirelurk queen? It wasn’t exactly hard to do.”  
        “Twenty raiders,” I say, a bit surprised.  
        “I know. I was a kinda shocked by the turnout. Especially since it was strictly a volunteer bases. Seems the Pack wanted to do everything they could to get revenge for what happened to ya.”  
I’m flattered, to say the least. But also kind of annoyed at the realization that if so many were willing to head out to the bottling plant and finish the job, what do they need me for? “Why didn’t you just do that in the beginning, Gage? Could have saved me a lot of grief.”  
        “Shit, boss. Ain’t no one gonna fight for ya if you don’t give ‘em reason to. Guess they wanted to see if you’d live up to your word. And so far, you have. You dyin’ before the job is done is something that most of these guys just won’t stand for. But it doesn’t mean they don’t still want to see you fight.”  
        I nod. Sure, it makes sense. But one with more park to clear, I can’t help but feel like me dying might be a real possibility. Especially since no one knows what lingers at Safari Adventure. And I’m not so sure I’m ready to take on something so unpredictable during my recovery process. “So what now?”  
        “Now, we assign the park. Now, I know you said you wanted the Operators to head up the bottling plant, but…thought maybe you wanted to reconsider after what the Pack did for ya, takin’ out the queen and all.”  
        I shake my head. “No, World of Refreshment belongs to the Operators.”  
        Gage is quiet for a moment. “You sure you wanna do that? Might discourage the Pack a bit. Seeing as how they put their life on the line to help clear it.”  
        I consider what he’s saying. He’s absolutely right, it seems unfair to award the park to the Operators when the Pack took out the mirelurk queen. But I just don’t see the pack enjoying the park as much as the Operators, and it only makes sense in my mind that they’re awarded Safari Adventure. “I think it’s time we have a talk with Mason.”  
        “Sure, boss. You want me to bring him here?”  
        I shake my head. “No, let’s go visit him. I need to get out of this fucking mountain before I lose my damn mind.” Gage raises an eyebrow to me. “Again.” He chuckles a bit and then helps me off my stool.  
        I’m happy to be wearing actual clothes again. And even though my ankle throbs every time I take a step, my balance is much better after doubling up the thickness of my wrap and sliding my boots on over it. It gives me enough support to walk almost without a limp—something that I’m hoping instills faith in the raiders as we pass through Nuka-Town.  
        “I gotta admit, boss. You’re lookin’ much better. It’s good to see you up and about again,” Gage says as we approach the doors leading to the nest.  
        “Don’t let my brave face fool you. My ankle is killing me.”  
        “Overboss,” the pack member on guard says when we get closer. “You can head on in.”  
        We enter the nest—the sight being much less alluring during the day without the twinkle lights lighting the path to Mason. And I forgot how awful the place smelled. But as we walk, I notice the Pack members smiling, nodding, and moving out of my way as we pass. “Hey, boss. Glad to see you’re alive and well,” one says, and I nod to him.  
        “Ain’t no fuckin’ mirelurk queen gonna take the boss down,” another says, and I high-five him. Though he doesn’t really seem to understand the gesture.  
        But while circling the cages to make my way to the stage, one pack member in particular catches my eye. A female, one who looks displeased by the sight of me. As if I disgust her—my presence being comparable to that of a super mutant. “Gage?”  
        “Yeah, boss?”  
        “Who’s that?” I ask while tipping my head to the raider.  
        “That? That’s…that’s no one. Just another pack member.”  
        “She doesn’t look very happy to see me,” I say while forcing my attention back to our intended target.  
        “Eh, I wouldn’t worry about it, boss. It’s probably got nothin’ to do with you and everything to do with livin’ in this shit show.”  
        We approach the steps leading to Mason’s throne, and smirk spreads across the orange-haired giant sitting before me. “Overboss. I didn’t expect you to be making your rounds so soon. Feeling better?”  
        “Much better, thank you for asking.”  
        He holds his hands out. “And to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”  
        I find it humorous how much Mason has changed his tune. It’s as if he’s trying to speak like Mags or William, though he fails at it miserably. Though I have to admit, it is endearing, seeing him suck up to me. “If I could have a minute of your time to talk to you about some things.”  
        “Sure, boss. Whatever you need.” Mason stands and holds his hand out to allow me entry into his quarters before him. A gentlemanly act—one I never would have suspected from a raider. Even if he is trying to suck up to me.  
        We enter his quarters and I grab a seat at the table in the middle of the room while Mason takes the seat across from me. Gage stands behind me, no doubt ready for some sort of conflict to break out between Mason and I. “What’s on your mind, boss?” Mason asks coolly, a wry smile on his face. “I’m gonna assume by your guard dog here that this is a business meeting.”  
        “Mason, I wanted to thank you for the gift you sent to my quarters. And for the willingness to lend some of your men to wipe out the mirelurk queen. It was a really…stand up thing to do.”  
        “What can I say? I’m a stand up guy.”  
        I force a smile, but it quickly fades. Because I know what I’m about to tell him is going to shove all pleasantries out the door. “The bottling plant is what I came to talk to you about.”  
        “Oh yeah? You need one of our flags to go put on display?”  
        “I’m giving it to the Operators.”  
        He stares at me for a moment, but his eyes narrow. “I’m sorry, what was that?”  
        “It makes sense for them to have that territory. Your people? They wouldn’t be happy there, I promise you that.”  
        “My people would be happy if we weren’t livin’ on top of each other anymore. If you paid them the proper respect after they risked their lives to go in there and finish the job,” he says sharply while leaning forward, now very much on high alert.  
        I sigh. “Look…I can understand why you find the news to be…disconcerting. But rest assured, the Pack will be taken care of.”  
        “I’m not sure if I believe that anymore. And what am I supposed to tell my guys when they see the Operator’s flag flying from the territory they liberated?”  
        “Tell them something better is on the horizon. I’ve had it planned from the beginning that the Pack gets Kiddie Kingdom and Safari Adventure. And I know you’re a man of order. You feel the gang I like the most gets awarded first. But I promise you, it’s not the case. Truth be told, my fondness for the Pack has grown considerably since our last talk. Which is why I’m doing this, Mason.”  
        “It doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense. You want us to have your back, you need to prove to us that you’re worth defending. And after all this, I’m not so sure I can convince my men of that.”  
        “Safari Adventure is more suited to your needs. It’s a larger space, more spread out. There are cages there for your dogs—more than enough buildings to house as many of your people as you need. The bottling plant is a miserable place to be. Flooded, wet…it’s a junk yard. And the Pack deserves better accommodations than that, am I right?”  
        Mason considers. “How do I know you’ll give it to us? Am I just supposed to trust you? As a sign of good faith?”  
        “Yes, most definitely. Because I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep. Safari Adventure is yours, if you want it. But if you tell me right here and now that you prefer the bottling plant, then I’ll give that to you, and the Operators will take Safari Adventure.”  
        “So you’re giving me a choice?” he asks, that look of amusement returning to him.  
        “To avoid any retaliation from the Pack, yes. I’m giving you a choice. But I implore you to be patient and wait your turn. I think you’ll be much happier in the end.”  
        Again, he considers. “All right, boss. We’ll wait our turn. But if I see any other flag flying above Safari Adventure after it’s cleared, I’ll tear your heart right out of your chest.”  
        I extend my hand to him and he hesitates to close the deal with the handshake, though he relents, much to his dismay. “I’m glad you were able to see reason.” I stand to make my way to the exit. “Tell your men Safari Adventure is yours. But do me a favor and keep it in the nest for now. I don’t want to get Nisha’s panties in a wad before I have to.”  
        Mason winces. “If you can refrain from referencing Nisha’s undergarments from here on out, we ain’t gonna have any problems keeping the word among the Pack.”  
        I snicker and nod to Mason before turning to exit his quarters.  
        I’m greeted by the same pleasantries leaving the nest upon entering, but once Gage and I make it out of their domain and start walking back through Nuka-Town, Gage’s curiosity gets the better of him. “I gotta ask. Why’s it so important for you that Mason have Safari Adventure? Territory’s territory whether it’s more suited to their needs or not.”  
        “Keeping the raiders happy is important, Gage. And I truly believe the Pack will be happier at Safari Adventure,” I say, but Gage isn’t buying it. He stops walking and grabs my arm to pull me into a nearby ally.  
        “What’s going on, boss?”  
        I look over my shoulder to assure no one is watching, but we find ourselves in predominantly Operator territory at this point. “Fine. A message came from Lizzie Wyath earlier today while you were at the market. She requested the bottling plant on behalf of the Operators, something I was already planning on doing until you told me about the Pack being the ones to clear it out. So, really, I just needed Mason to agree to take Safari Adventure.”  
        “But why does Lizzie want the bottling plant?”  
        I shrug. “It’s just more suited to her needs. Gives her a better place to set up her lab, run tests and experiments. And it seems Mags has a vested interest in the place as well, but they were pretty hush hush about all that.”  
        “You tellin’ me the truth?” he asks skeptically, and I smirk.  
        “Most of it.”  
        “Boss…” he warns. “We need to be able to tell each other the truth. Be honest with one another, or this partnership ain’t ever gonna work.”  
        I chuckle, but Gage isn’t amused. And I’m not laughing at what he says. I agree with him one hundred percent. I’m laughing because of the reason the Operator’s want the bottling plant so badly. “Okay, okay…but this stays between us, all right?”  
        “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.”  
        I try to wipe the grin from my face. “Mags Black is convinced that Mr. Bradburton’s…I guess hiding some sort of treasure inside the plant. His life’s earnings, or some shit like that. But Lizzie said Mags is willing to give me a cut if I give the Operators the bottling plant.”  
        Gage stares at me for a moment. “You fuckin’ with me? The leader of the Operators has her sights set on some myth about buried treasure,” he says, unimpressed, and I can’t stifle a laugh.  
        “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you.”  
        “Oh my God, you believe it to be true.”  
        I shrug. “I dunno. But it doesn’t hurt anything. Especially since Mason seems like he’s on board with the Operators taking over the plant.”  
        Gage scoffs. “If that ain’t the dumbest shit I ever heard,” he says while moving past me to continue our trek back to Fizztop Mountain.  
        “That’s fine. Just means I won’t share my cut with you.”  
        “Nah, you’re sharin’.”

        Gage and I decide to make our way out to the bottling plant in order to raise the flag for the Operators. Despite his insistence to wait until my ankle feels better, I convince him that I need the exercise. That if I don’t get out and start walking around, my ankle will start to atrophy and be useless. And even though I know it not to be true, I can’t deny myself the satisfaction of seeing the perplexed expression on his face.  
        “Shit, I don’t know what that means, but it don’t sound good.”  
        “It’s not,” I say while following him up the metal staircase to get to the elevator that’ll bring us to the flagpole on top of the plant. “The muscles in my foot will start to wither, and then I’ll just be left with bone, but then the bones will start breaking down, and my foot will become complete mush.” Not at all what happens when something atrophies, and Gage is too smart to fall for my sarcasm.  
        He looks over his shoulder at me. “Damn, woman. Hell of an imagination you got.”  
        We make it to the elevator to bring us to the top of the bottling plant, and after climbing aboard and pressing the button, I feel Gage’s hand on my arm and a slight tug as he pulls me closer to him. “What, are you afraid of heights?” I ask.  
        He shakes his head while looking out at the skyline. “Nah. Just don’t want to risk you falling over the rail with your…atrophied ankle.” I chuckle, and Gage smirks at me. But I allow him to keep me close to ease his apprehension about having me walk the metal walkway to the flagpole. Because the railing that keeps us from going over isn’t very high, and the metal ground beneath us doesn’t seem as stable as it may have been before the bombs.  
        Gage takes it upon himself to hang the flag himself, and once it’s raised into the faded pink sky, I admire the sight. Four parks down and one to go, and my release from Nuka-World seems just on the horizon. But I glance at Gage, and I feel my expression soften. Because I know once I leave Nuka-World, I won’t ever see him again.  
        And that saddens me, for some reason. True, I’ve had a curiosity about him for some time, but it was never anything I expected nor wanted to go anywhere. But maybe it’s because I see him as a friend—as terrible as that is, the general of the Minutemen being friends with a raider. But one thing I’ve learned in this world is to keep friends close. Because you’ll never know how much time they have left.  
        Gage glances at me. “What?” he asks, but I shake my head. “You got something on your mind?”  
        I consider. “I have a question for you.”  
        “All right. Shoot.”  
        “Well…you were talking about us being honest with each other earlier. So I need an honest answer right now.”  
        “Somethin’ tells me I ain’t gonna enjoy this.”  
        “Do you regret it?” He stares at me for a while before putting a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it to detract his gaze from me.  
        “Regret what?” he asks, and I roll my eyes.  
        “You know what I’m talking about. What happened between us.”  
        He exhales heavily, pushing out a puff of smoke from his lungs. “Nope. Just regret everything that came as a result.” He leans on the railing and takes another drag of his cigarette. “Christ. I can’t believe I’m talkin’ about this shit. Feelings and shit…”  
        “Gage…”  
        “Look, if I’d have had it my way, you wouldn’t have freaked out about the whole thing. And maybe the two of us would have…you know, carried on that way for a while. Least until you decided it was time for you to leave.” His eyes seem sad while looking at me, and when I move toward him, he turns away from me and flicks his cigarette off the edge.  
        “Carried on, like…a relationship?”  
        He scoffs. “I hate usin’ that fuckin’ word. Every person I come in contact with, I establish some kinda relationship with. It’s not always a good one. Hell, not always a bad one either. I just mean…”  
        “Fucking?” I say, unimpressed.  
        He looks over his shoulder at me, deep in thought about something. “Sure, if that’s what you want to call it. But I think it’d be more than that. We make a good team, you and I. And I can’t help but think that if things had progressed between us, it’d be well worth the effort. Because you really are somethin’ else, Scarlett.” He shrugs. “Just wish it would’ve gone better, I guess.”  
        “It’s not too late for that, Gage.”  
        “Yeah…maybe not. But let’s take it one step at a time, okay? See where things end up. I mean, I don’t want you promisin’ me the world and only givin’ me a jar of dirt.”  
        If Gage considers me “the world” then I think I may have underestimated his feelings for me. And now I feel even more guilty for the bullshit I put him through. And then I feel anxious about the things I just said to him. About the possibility of us having more. Because I’ll leave Nuka-World at some point. And all he’ll be left with is, like he said, a jar of dirt.  
        I exhale heavily. “Well…we should start heading back.” I start to turn away, but Gage makes an abrupt movement toward me.  
        “Now, hang on a second. Since we’re bein’ honest with one another, I have somethin’ I been wantin’ to get off my chest.”  
        “Oh yeah?” I ask.  
        He nods, but his expression is pointed. “Yeah,” he says sharply, and I can assume that whatever he wishes to say, it isn’t any good. “I know you think you’re some kinda big deal out in the Commonwealth, takin’ out the biggest threats out there all because they pissed you off. Hell, maybe the Minutemen built you up too much in your own head. Now you walk around thinkin’ you’re hot shit. Like you don’t need anyone’s help…”  
        “Uh…what the hell, Gage?” I ask because it seems completely out of nowhere, his accusations.  
        “Just shut up and listen. What you did? Taking on the bottling plant by yourself? Was about the dumbest thing I ever witnessed. And yeah, it made me lose a lot of respect for ya. I can’t help but think maybe you’re startin’ to believe all the stories about you. That you’re larger than life, taking out the Institute and the Brotherhood of Steel single-handedly. But you and I both know, you didn’t do it by yourself. And this shit right here, right now? You can’t do it alone either. You’re always gonna need someone to have your back, Scarlett.”  
        “I…have you…”  
        He nods. “Yeah. But you weren’t so keen on having me by your side last week. Almost got yourself killed, if you remember correctly. Just know that it’s my job to keep shit from happening to ya. And when you send me away, you’re keepin’ me from doing that. And that pisses me off to no end.”  
        I fold my arms across my chest, his words making me feel more vulnerable than I’d like, but he’s not wrong. “Okay.”  
        “And I promise you, Scarlett. You’re the boss, and I’ll listen to ya so long as what you’re tellin’ me to do is reasonable. But I promise you, if you so much as try and take a walk through the market by yourself again, I’ll lock you up in one of Mason’s cages and throw away the damn key.” I’m stunned by his threat. It’s a horrible thing to say to someone, truly. But even more horrible is that I’m kind of moved by it too. I can’t help but feel his anger comes from an oddly beautiful place. One he isn’t sure how to express normally. Maybe he’s never had to before. “You hear me, woman?”  
        I scoff. Now he’s taking it too far. “Yeah, I hear you. I won’t go wandering off by myself again, Gage. You have my word.”  
        He nods to me. “So long as we understand each other, I don’t see why this has to put a damper on our partnership.”  
        I stomp my foot and point my finger in his face. “Don’t call me woman again.”  
        He holds his hands up in retreat. “Whatever you say, boss.”


	14. The Time Has Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett and Gage focus their attention on Safari Adventure.*

        The time has come to finish the job. With one park remaining, I’m already starting to feel victorious over my new domains. But with only one park remaining, rumors begin spreading like wildfire throughout Nuka-Town about who will rule over Safari Adventure. The Operators assume it to be the Disciples. And the Disciples feel it is a just claim. But only one gang knows the truth, and Mason has done well on his promise to keep our secret in the confines of the nest.  
        But by the end of the day, all will know that Safari Adventure belongs to the Pack. And even though I feel a bit exhilarated at the prospect of being done with what I promised Gage and the others I’d do for them, I can’t help but feel something awful is on the horizon. Something much worse than whatever awaits us at Safari Adventure.  
        “You know, in the beginning, I was kinda glad we decided to save this for last. But now I’m thinkin’ we shoulda just got it over and done with,” Gage says as we approach the gates to Safari Adventure.  
        “Feeling a little apprehensive?”  
        “A bit,” he says, and I stop at the gate and look ahead. Nothing inside puts me on alert. No, instead, the only thing that grabs my attention is the grayish-brown storm clouds hastily covering up any of the sun’s rays. “I heard about this place and what it was like before the war. Used to be a zoo. They used to keep animals here to put on display for the park-goers to gawk at.”  
        I smirk. “I know what a zoo is.”  
        “Ever been to one?”  
        “Lots. They’re quite fun, actually.”  
        But Gage seems unimpressed. “Yeah, well…as fun as they might’ve been, I get the feeling that the post-war set-up might not be as entertaining.” My Geiger counter starts ticking and a flash of lightning blinds me momentarily. “This ain’t right, boss. We should head back and try again tomorrow.”  
        “Well, wait a second. We’ve come all this way, don’t you at least want to see what’s inside?” I ask while stepping closer to the gate.  
        “Came all this way. It took us ten minutes to get here.” I feel a grin spread across my face while walking further into Safari Adventure, and I hear Gage mutter, “Ah, shit,” before running to catch up with me. “You know, I ain’t too keen on lookin’ like a ghoul. That Geiger counter of yours don’t cool it within ten minutes, we’re outta here.”  
        “You’re particularly chatty today, Gage.”  
        “Someone’s gotta keep you from flyin’ too close to the sun.”  
        We walk through Safari Adventure a bit, and when we come across nothing, we walk further into the park. We pass cages, animal pens, but there are no animals in sight. My optimistic side wants to assume that maybe nothing exists in Safari Adventure. But Gage’s words about the scouts never returning sends a cold chill down my spine.  
        We reach a small bridge leading across a man-made river, but another flash of lightning blinds me for a moment, and within seconds, I feel the irradiated rainfall on my skin. And it’s coming down with a mighty fury. “All right, I’m callin’ it,” Gage says when my Geiger counter continues to tick like crazy.  
        I know he’s right. Slowly becoming poisoned by the radiation storm is one thing. But fighting something in the rain is the cherry on the cake, and it’s time to go. But through the rain hitting the small river—creating ripples throughout, I manage to see something moving through the water, creating a trail of ripples behind it. And whatever it is, it moves fast before disappearing deeper into the river.  
        “Hey, boss?” Gage says, grabbing my attention away from the mysterious creature.  
        “Yeah, all right. Let’s get out of here. We’ll…we’ll come back when the rain stops.”  
        We start making our way to the exit of Safari Adventure, but as I round one of the cages, my eyes fall on something horrendous. Something demonic, evil. The stuff of nightmares, and the only thing I’ve come across in the Commonwealth to instill true and utter fear inside of me.  
        I gasp, but I feel Gage come up from behind me. He covers my mouth and pulls me back behind the cage, out of sight from the demonic beast. Still, my heart is pounding. “Shush,” Gage whispers, but he sees it too. He removes his hand from my mouth and peers around the cage.  
        “It’s a deathclaw,” I whisper, my breath shaking as I do.  
        “That don’t look like an ordinary deathclaw.” Gage retreats and faces me completely.  
        “What do we do?” I ask.  
        “We…we wait. Wait for it to get distracted by something. We can’t take this thing on in the rain.”  
        I nod in agreement. “We need to regroup.”  
        “That’s right. Regroup.” He peers around the corner of the cage again. “Shit. Fucker’s big.” But another flash of lightning sends my pip-boy’s Geiger counter into a frenzy. The storm is getting worse, but it’s hardly the reason I start to panic at the sound.  
        “Shit, shit…” I whisper, quite loudly.  
        “Turn it off!”  
        “I can’t turn it off, it’s a Geiger counter!”  
        The sun is all but gone from the advance of storm clouds, and the heaviness of the rain soaks us. I look to our left to see the monstrosity nearing us. The sound of its feet stomping on the ground, splashing in the puddles from the rainfall. The sound of its heavy breathing, no doubt trying to sniff us out. “I think it heard us,” Gage whispers, barely loud enough for me to hear. But   I’m frozen against the bars with Gage’s arm across my chest still. The sound of the beast getting closer, it’s enough to make me stop breathing because I’m afraid it’ll even hear that.  
        But the creature stops approaching. And I’m thinking maybe it’ll just turn and head back in the other direction. I’m praying that’ll happen, at least. But instead, it stomps one of its horrendously large feet on the ground and lets out an ear-peircing roar. One so powerful that I physically cover my ears to prevent injury.  
        “Scarlett, run!” Gage yells while pushing me away from the deathclaw as it stomps around the corner of the cage, and I’ve never been so afraid in my entire life.  
        We run through Safari Adventure, navigating as best we can through the rain. But the deathclaw stays on our heels, causing the ground to shake with every step it takes as it closes the gap between the two of us. But I feel our luck will soon run out, and any moment, we’ll reach a dead end and be trapped by the beast.  
        Gage grabs my arm. “Come on!” he yells while making a hard left, pulling us into hedge maze that in any other circumstance, I would figure to be the worst move ever. But we can lose this thing in here, I tell myself. And really, we had nowhere else to go.  
        The deathclaw is fast though, and I can’t help but think we might just have to turn and fight and hope for the best. But Gage keeps running, so I keep running. And when we reach a fork in the maze, there’s a moment of hesitation between the two of us, unsure of which direction the other intends to go.  
        By the deathclaw launching toward us splits the two of us apart as we dive in opposite directions to avoid an attack. Gage staggers as he regains his balance, but he’s dropped his gun, and I watch in horror as the deathclaw focuses its attention on Gage. I have a brief moment of relief, and even though this is my chance to get away, I can’t bear to leave Gage to his own devices.  Even if he wouldn’t do the same for me. Because I’m not so sure he would.  
        I pull the shotgun from my back and cock it before firing a shot into the deathclaw’s back, but it continues to approach Gage. “Hey!” I yell while firing another round, and this time, it hits the back of the creature’s head.  
        “Scarlett, don’t! Just go!” Gage yells, but I fire another shot.  
        “Over here, you ugly son of a bitch!” The deathclaw stomps its giant foot into the ground again and bellows that debilitating roar before turning to me, swiping at me so fast that I almost fall backwards.  
        It seems my plan has worked, getting the attention away from Gage. But now I’m out of ideas, so I start running again, and I can hear the deathclaw following behind. “Scarlett!” I hear Gage yell, but his voice is becoming more faint the further I get into the maze.  
        I reach a dead end, and the sight sends a panic through me. Turn and fight, I tell myself. But the deathclaw launches at me before I can even raise my gun, and I throw myself into one of the hedge walls to narrowly miss his attack.  
        I scramble to my feet and start running in the opposite direction, but this maze is killing me, and I know that if I’m trapped in here much longer, I might as well resign myself to death. Even though I’m starting to get ahead of the deathclaw, it’s only a matter of time before I reach another dead end.  
        I come to another fork and pause briefly to try and decide which direction to go. “Gage!” I yell, but the roar of the deathclaw coming around the corner silences any sort of reply he might try and give. I make a left and then another before finding myself in a long walkway of the maze. I’m at one of the outer edges, but the exit is nowhere in sight. I can’t go back. Not with the deathclaw on my tail. So I keep running down the long walkway, and as I’m nearing the end, I see a collapsed wall. The hedges that once trapped park-goers in this fucking hell hole, it seems something tore through them at some point.  
        A momentary feeling of relief comes over me as I make a hard left through the only escape I’ve come across so far, but the deathclaw is quick to come crashing through the weak point of the maze. We’re out in the open now, and I turn to the monster and fire three shots into its stomach as it raises up high to no doubt come crashing down on me with its mighty claws. But the third shot knocks it back a bit. And before it can launch at me again, I fire another shot into its chest.  
        The deathclaw, it comes crashing down with a mighty force, taking me down with it. I drop my gun and crack my head on the wet pavement, and immediately, I hear ringing in my ears. I pick my head up to see the deathclaw lying motionless at my feet, but my vision becomes blurry, and my head is throbbing in pain.  
        I start to drift in and out of consciousness when I see a dark figure approach me. “Gage?” But he says nothing. And as the figure lifts me from the ground, I drift away completely and enter a world of darkness.

        I feel the intermittent blowing of something warm and fowl-smelling on my face. And then I hear grunting so close to me that it startles me awake, and my eyes meet with the furrowed brow and jarring, curious expression of a gorilla. And I start screaming. I push myself backward until I hit a wall, but it seems my screaming has caused panic in the gorilla. And its friends.  
They start screeching, roaring, slamming their fists into the ground, and when I see the amount of them present, all focused on me, I start screaming again. I try to grab my gun from my back, but it isn’t there. And neither is my pistol on my thigh.  
        “No, no!” a man yells and then starts communicating with the gorillas with a series of grunts, calming them enough to move away from me. It’s an astounding sight, but even more astounding, the man dressed in nothing more than a loin cloth approaching me, and I don’t like where any of this is going. “Cito sorry for family. Family no see another human in many years.”  
        I’m panting, clinging to the wall behind me, desperately wishing there was a way to get away from the scantily clad gorilla man standing before me. “Who the fuck are you? Tarzan of the apes?”  
        “Cito no understand.” He motions to himself. “I am Cito. And this is my family,” he says while motioning to the gorillas that seem to have gone about their own business again. “Cito saw lady take down monster. Monster strong, but lady stronger.”  
        I let out a nervous laugh. “Okay, well…I should be going.”  
        “Cito happy you kill monster. Monster hurt Cito and Cito family.” I look around the caged area in which I find myself.  
        “Well, uh…it can’t hurt you anymore, Cito…”  
        “No. Many more monster. No stop. Cito kill monster. New monster come. Cito kill monster again. New monster come again. Monsters not stop. Help Cito stop monsters?” he asks, and the look of desperation in his eyes is enough to break my heart. Mostly because he’s tried on his own, numerous times from what he’s told me, and failed. And I’m a sucker for that sort of thing.  
I feel myself become more relaxed in his presence. He doesn’t give me the vibe of wanting to do me any harm. He’s just simply asking for my help. For the sake of his…family. And seeing as how I need to clear the park anyway…  
        “How many are there?” I ask.  
        “Cito not know. Cito only know that monster keep coming.”  
        I’m entranced by this man and the way he talks. Curious about how he came to be raised by apes, and also very curious about what all he knows about the deathclaws. Because hearing that there are lots of them kinda makes me want to reconsider this whole Overboss thing. But the sound of someone pounding on the metal door to our enclosure startles me.  
        “Scarlett!” I hear Gage yell from outside.  
        “Gage?!”  
        “Scarlett, open the door!” he shouts, and I look to Cito.  
        “It’s, uh…it’s okay. He’s a friend of mine,” I say.  
        Cito nods. “Your friend, my friend,” he says, and I hesitate to speak while Cito approaches the metal door. Because I’m not really sure how Gage will react to a half-naked man being anywhere near him. Like, maybe I should warn him about Gage’s temperament. But Cito opens the door, and just as I should have known would happen, Gage comes charging in with his gun pointed right in Cito’s face.  
        “All right, asshole, where is she?” Gage barks.  
        “Gage, no!” I yell, but the sound of the gorillas getting excited again instills a nervousness in me. One where I expect to see Gage get ripped apart by the angry beasts. But Cito communicates with his family, and I see the look of apprehension on Gage’s face. He glances at me, all the while pointing his gun at Cito.  
        “Scarlett, get over here,” he demands, and I rush to his side. Maybe to somehow show the animals that he’s…well, not friendly, but not the one they need to fear.  
        “Cito no hurt friend. Cito need her help.”  
        “Gage, put the gun down,” I say while bringing my hand to his arm.  
        “I have half a mind to put a bullet in your stupid face,” Gage shouts at Cito.  
        “Gage, stop…”  
        “Cito no threat. Monsters want dead us all. We must kill monsters.”  
        I smile at Cito. “Gage, if you shoot him we’re going to be ripped apart by his lovely family,” I say through gritted teeth. “Put the gun down.”  
        Gage relents, though he doesn’t seem happy about it. “Let’s go. We don’t need this shit,” he says while pushing me toward the exit, but Ctio grabbing Gage’s gun from his hands puts Gage on high alert, though before he can do anything, Cito smashes him in the face with the butt of his own gun, knocking him to the ground.  
        I gasp. “Oh my God!”  
        “God dammit,” Gage curses while wiping the blood from his nose.  
        “Cito no like your friend. Friend is mean like monsters.”  
        “No, Cito…friend is…friend is good. He’s really…nice once you get to know him.” I look down at Gage, and as angry as he seems, I’m hoping he’s smart enough not to retaliate. Especially since Cito still holds his gun. “He’s just very…protective. Like…you and your family. You protect them, right?”  
        Cito points between Gage and I. “You family?”  
        “No, no, no…he’s a friend.” I lean over and offer Gage my hand to assist him to his feet. “He protects me,” I say while motioning to Gage and then myself. “And…he doesn’t know you, so…he became, uh…mad.” Talking to Cito proves to be difficult. I’m not sure what all he understands, and I find myself using more hand gestures than normal. “Do you…understand, Cito?”  
        “Cito understand. Friend protects lady because he loves her…”  
        I wince. “Well, no…”  
        “All human understand love.” It’s a beautiful sentiment, one I wish were true. Cito looks to Gage and then hands him his gun. “Cito feel bad for hitting lady’s friend.”  
        “Yeah, whatever,” Gage gripes while snatching his gun away.  
        “Now you help Cito. Family in danger. Hide here from monsters. Here only safe place. Here have no food. Here have no water. Cito go outside to help family. Monster try to kill Cito.”  
        “I see.” My heart goes out to him, poor guy.  
        “Cito kill many. More monsters come. Never stop. Cito scared monster hurt family.”  
        I feel my expression soften, but when I glance to Gage, I see he’s still glaring at Cito. And under any other circumstances, I’m certain Gage would never agree to help. But we need the park clear just as much as Cito.  
        “It’s…okay, Cito. We’ll take care of the monsters.”  
        “Cito like new friend,” he says through a smile. “Cito have story that help with monsters,” he says, and I become intrigued. He tells me about a wrinkly man coming into his home, hurt and in need of help. That the wrinkly man confessed to creating the monsters, which made Cito angry and that the wrinkly man was sorry for putting Cito’s family in danger. In an attempt to help Cito, the wrinkly man gave him a holotape.  
        I turn away from them and insert it into my Pip-boy, bringing it up closer to my ear to hear better through the constant grunts of the gorilla. At first, all I hear is white noise. But then a low, coarse voice begins to speak. “This is…Doctor Darren McDermot, last known survivor…at Safari Adventure…Replication Facility. This is…my final recording. I’ve done something horrible. The thing I created…the thing I called gatorclaw…they must be destroyed…”  
        Gatorclaw. It explains why they look different than other deathclaws and why they seem to be more agile than most, the main component of their DNA being a fucking alligator, one of the most fearsome predators in North America even before the war. And now they’ve been intentionally mutated for God knows what reason. But Doctor McDermot continues.  
        “They can’t be…tamed, they can’t be controlled…their sheer ferocity is like nothing I’ve ever seen. And now…the Nuka-Gen Replicator is out of control. It’s producing them at an…alarming rate.”  
        “Son of a bitch,” I mutter and then meet with Gage’s gaze. He seems just as displeased by the news as myself.  
        “Please…somebody. Anybody! Find my passcode…or Dr. Hein’s. Shut down the replicator before it’s…before it’s too late.” The recording ends, but the news is disconcerting. Taking out one gatorclaw proved to be difficult enough, but by the sound of it, there’s many more and more will keep coming.  
        “Dead man have important thing?” Cito asks, and I turn to face him, trying my hardest to hide the pained expression on my face.  
        “Well…it seems like the gatorclaws, er…the monsters, are coming from an animal cloning facility somewhere in Safari Adventure. We need to find it.”  
        “Shiny thing help new friend?” Cito asks.  
        “Uh…yes. It was very helpful.”  
        Gage scoffs. “Unless this ‘shiny thing’ is gonna sprout wings and lead us to the cloning facility, we’re shit outta luck.”  
        “Lady friend funny. Shiny thing not bird,” Cito says, and I can’t help but chuckle at his insistence to call Gage “lady friend.” “No worry,” Cito continues. “Cito can help. Cito remember something. Cito see wrinkly man come from bit triangle house long time ago.”  
        “Well, it certainly is a place to start.” I look to Gage. “You ready?”  
        He nods. “Sure, boss.”  
        “Cito come with new friend. Cito help,” Cito says, and I glance at Gage again. He doesn’t seem thrilled about the idea.  
        “I’m thinkin’ no, for what it’s worth,” he grumbles.  
        I look back to Cito and consider. It might be easier with three people, sure. But I can’t guarantee Gage will be on his best behavior. And maybe Cito will be a victim of friendly fire. And if Cito dies, we have no way of communicating with the apes. Putting down gatorclaws and gorillas? I don’t like our odds. “Uh…no. You stay with your family. Keep them safe.”  
        “Cito stay with family.”  
        Gage waits for me at the door, but I remember that none of my guns are in my possession. I turn back to Cito. “Did you take my pistol?”  
        “Cito take shiny thing from lady to protect family. Cito sorry,” he says while removing my pistol from the back of his loin cloth. He hands it to me, and I just can’t fight the urge to wipe it clean on my jacket before checking the chamber to assure it’s still fully loaded.  
        “And my shotgun?”  
        “Shot gun. Cito no have lady…shot gun.”  
        I nod to him and make my way to the exit where Gage waits for me patiently. “We need to find it. This pistol won’t do shit against the gatorclaws.”  
        Gage and I walk outside of the gorilla exhibit, and I’m pleased to see that the rain has stopped and the sun is shining bright, even if it causes my eyes to burn and me lose my orientation briefly. But it’ll be much easier to fight in these conditions, and I feel as though we need every advantage we can get.  
        “Any idea where your shotgun might be?” he asks.  
        “Probably next to that dead gatorclaw. I just hope we don’t come across any before we find it. I won’t be much help.”  
        We walk slowly through Safari Adventure, and it takes a moment for me to recognize our surroundings and figure out which way to go. But within ten minutes, we find ourselves at the edge of the hedge maze, and right where I left him, the dead gatorclaw.  
        I approach the thing and kick its arm out of the way to find my shotgun laying on the ground. “I’m impressed you managed to take that thing down by yourself.”  
        I grab the shotgun and reload. “Well…I noticed something. Their stomach is the weakest spot. Shoot ‘em in the back or the head, their hide just protects them. But if you shoot them in the stomach, it seems to do the trick.”  
        “Okay, so we’ll just…ask ‘em to stand up straight for us.”  
        I chuckle. “You know how this one stomped its foot and stood up real tall before letting out that…I guess, that roar.”  
        A smirk spreads across his face. “Best time to open fire.”  
        “You got it.” I sling my shotgun over my back and look toward the distance to the triangle house Cito mentioned. “Hey, how’d you know where to find me?”  
        Gage shrugs. “I heard you screaming. Heard all them apes howling. Not gonna lie, I thought you’d be dead before I had the chance to get to ya.”  
        I think for a moment. “If you heard me screaming…there’s a good chance the gatorclaws heard it too.”  
        “Yeah…I was kinda thinkin’ the same thing.”  
        “So we’ll probably find them hanging around the primate house.”  
        “Why don’t we just focus on shuttin’ down the replication facility first. Don’t make much sense usin’ our ammo on these things if more will just keep comin’.”  
        He makes a good point, but it doesn’t mean we won’t turn and fight if we have to. Though while walking back through the park to make our way to the triangle house, a gator claw lingering out front makes both of us retreat behind a wall of shrubbery.  
        We kneel down to take cover and watch the thing for a while, but it doesn’t seem to be wanting to go anywhere any time soon. But we can’t just sit here.  
        I grab a rock next to my boot and chuck it across the walkway as hard as I can, and the sound of it cracking onto the concrete on the other side of the triangle house grabs the gatorclaws attention.  
        Gage and I watch the monster leave the area to investigate the sound. “Nice work, boss,” Gage mutters, and I nudge him to get him to follow me around the shrub wall and through an opening closer to the entrance. Because even though the gatorclaw is momentarily distracted, going straight for the walkway seems like suicide.  
        We creep around the corner of the triangle house, keeping our eyes out for the gatorclaw’s return, but the monster remains distracted, giving us the perfect opportunity to duck inside the triangle house.  
        Inside, a shit show of destruction, though I wouldn’t expect anything less from a post-war structure. But it’s dark inside—the only bit of light coming from the sunroof that has so much grime caked over it, it hardly paints a clear enough picture of what exists within the building. We find ourselves standing on a mezzanine of sort—a staircase leading down to the lower level on our left.  
        “This don’t look much like a cloning facility,” Gage says, and I agree.  
        “Yeah. It looks like a welcome center. Maybe it’s downstairs,” I say while leading the way to the staircase. We walk slowly, and the two of us are on high alert. When we reach the bottom of the stairs, I look around the area for any sign of where to go. But something moving in the distance distracts me from the task at hand.  
        “Guns hot, boss. We ain’t alone.”  
        We focus our attention to the back of the building. The only place where the cloning facility could be hiding, really. But what holds our attention isn’t an open doorway. Not a sign, telling us that the cloning facility is just ahead. But it’s the shadowy figure of something large, something horrifying. Something forged in the fires of hell.  
        The footsteps of the beast instills fear inside of me as it steps closer to us, though it remains hidden in the shadows, it’s figure paints a clear enough picture of the gatorclaw. And it’s bigger than the first.  
        I let out a quivering breath. “I guess it had to happen sooner or later,” I mutter and cock my shotgun.  
        The creature stomps its massive foot onto the ground and lets out its paralyzing roar, standing upright completely as it does. And even though it’s hardly in enough light to make out the details of its massive form, Gage and I open fire.  
        We’re the perfect matchup, Gage and I. And while my gun is more powerful than his, Gage’s gun allows him to keep shooting in between bursts from my own. “Ah shit,” Gage mutters while kneeling down. “Reloading.”  
        I take a step forward and fire another shot at the beast until Gage is back up and firing again, but the gatorclaw is quick, and we find ourselves moving backwards and up the stairs again, all while shooting the monster. The firepower, it’s enough to keep it back, for the most part, but it stays hunched over. And by the time we’re halfway up the stairs again, we become restless.  
        Our stash of ammo won’t allow us to keep fighting this way. “You think it’s doin’ anything?!” Gage shouts through our gunfire, but I’m not sure.  
        I cock my shotgun again and point it at the gatorclaws head before firing, and the blow sends it back a bit, opening its chest up to us, giving Gage the perfect opportunity to open fire in its most sensitive area as I cock my shotgun again.  
        “Please god,” I beg to myself before firing because the two of us are running out of space in which to retreat. But another blow from my gun to the gatorclaws stomach sends it staggering back a bit, and a few more shots from Gage sends it crashing down to the ground with a mighty force and deathly shriek.  
        Gage lets out a laugh when he sees the thing laying on the ground, motionless. “That was fun, huh?”  
        I scoff. “I have a sneaking suspicion that you might not know the definition of the word.” I sling my shotgun over my back again and approach the dead creature before looking back to the darkened area from which it came. “Come on.”  
        I turn on my Pip-boy light to further illuminate the way. A metal door with a terminal beside it beckons me to go forward. I try to open the door, but it’s locked. I look to the terminal. “All right, here we go,” I say while cracking my fingers and then attempt to start hacking the thing. But after a few minutes of trying and failing, it’s starting to look like we’ll need to do this the old fashioned way. “Shit.”  
        “What’s wrong? Can’t get it to open?”  
        “No, the firewall is too strong. It looks like the facility is in some kind of…lockdown phase. Something about…threat of a terrorist attack.”  
        “Yeah, it’s called a nuclear warhead.”  
        “No, this…is something different. I’m not sure why they’d even bother if the end of the world was only minutes away. Something else must’ve happened.”  
        “You think this might have something useful on it?” Gage asks while holding up a hototape, and I become curious.  
        “Where’d you get that?” Gage motions to a skeleton next to me. I take the holotape from him. “Really, Gage? Looting a skeleton?” He chuckles, and I insert the holotape into my Pip-boy. It’s a message from the Animal Friends and Defenders. A “terrorist” organization that resides in the smallest and most insignificant part of my memory.  
        I have to admit, I grow rather bored with the man’s verbal meanderings and his purpose to help and defend the animals. But when he mentions a kidnapping, I become intrigued. Doctor Hein, one of the men that worked with Doctor McDermot, was taken by this terrorist organization and executed somewhere called the Angry Anaconda.  
        “Angry Anaconda…why do I know that name?”  
        “Sounds like a bunch of gibberish to me…”  
        “Shush!” I think long and hard. The answer, it’s in the forefront of my mind, but it keeps evading me until a familiar tune pops into my mind. I gasp. “The rollercoaster! Come on!” I say while grabbing Gage’s armor.  
        “Rollercoaster?”  
        Outside, Gage and I make our way to the giant, rusted rollercoaster at the back of the park. “I remember Nate going on and on about the thing when the park first opened. It was said to be the tallest and fastest rollercoaster in the country, though it wasn’t open for very long before the bombs fell.”  
        “Why are we looking for this guy anyway?”  
        “We need his passcode to get into the cloning facility. Weren’t you listening to the holotape?”  
        “Sure, for a bit. But then he started rambling on, and I kinda figured you were listening, so…” But as we turn a corner, a gatorclaw comes into view, and I push Gage back to where we’re in cover. I don’t very much like the idea of fighting out in the open when I don’t know where the other gatorclaws might be hiding. For all I know, they could hear our gunshots and come help their friend.  
        The two of us wait for the gatorclaw to pass, and only when it’s out of our sight do I exhale a breath of relief. “Let’s just get this over with. The longer we take, the more gatorclaws we’ll have to kill.”  
        “Lead the way, boss.”  
        We make it to the Angry Anaconda unscathed, and I’m somewhat taken aback by the sight of the structure. Sure, it’s rusted and grimy, but the fact that it managed to stand tall and proud even through the apocalypse takes my breath away. “Now if that isn’t the sturdiest rollercoaster I’ve ever seen…”  
        “We got company,” Gage says, grabbing my attention away from the rollercoaster and directing it toward a gatorclaw running at us through the open field in which we find ourselves.  Though it’s not close enough for my shotgun to do anything, Gage immediately opens fire.  
        But that oh-so familiar ear-piercing shriek, I hear it again. Only it’s not coming from the gatorclaw that’s fast approaching. It’s coming from behind us. “Gage, run!” I scream at the sight of another gatorclaw launching toward us, swiping at us with its massive claw.  
        The two of us start sprinting across the field toward an old trailer on the far side, and the gatorclaws are in hot pursuit of us. “The trailer! Run for the trailer!” I yell. But my ankle is throbbing despite the reinforcement of my boot, and it causes me to run slower than usual. I tell myself to ignore the pain. That the pain the gatorclaws will inflict will be much worse than a sore ankle, but I can’t run for much longer.  
        We reach the trailer and Gage tosses his rifle on top of the structure before pulling himself to the top with almost minimum effort, and for a moment, I think he might just leave me down here. But he leans over the side and gives his hand to me, pulling me up top with him with ease.  
        We only have seconds to catch our bearings, and when one of the gatorclaws reaches the trailer, it crashes into the side—the force of which knocks us down to the roof beneath our feet. We cling to the trailer as best we can while the gatorclaw continues to smash itself into the side, teetering us atop the structure.  
        “What’s the plan, boss?” Gage shouts.  
        “Uh…wait it out in hopes they’ll get bored?”  
        Gage manages to laugh. “Yeah…I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”  
        The other gatorclaw reaches the trailer, and I hear the loud ping of its nails ripping through the walls as it attempts to climb on top to reach us. I turn onto my back and point my shotgun at its face before firing two shots into it, knocking down from its attempts to get to us. I try to stand, but the gatorclaw continues to smash its body into the side of the structure, making it difficult to keep my balance.  
        I scoot myself to the edge to face the second gatorclaw, but it jumps at me again, and I shoot it in the face once more, knocking it back onto the ground. I attempt to stand, but the constant smashing of the trailer makes me waver as I fire another shot at the second gatorclaw. I hear Gage firing in the background, his efforts being directed at the one that seems hellbent on knocking the trailer over.  
        “I don’t think this thing’s gonna hold up much longer!” he shouts through his gunfire.  
        He’s right, it won’t. But I just can’t accept the idea of the two of us crashing down to the ground only for us to have to face TWO gatorclaws. I fire another shot at the second one and then another, effectively keeping its claws planted on the ground instead of climbing up the side of the trailer. But I can’t get to its stomach, not from where I’m standing, and I almost start to believe my attempts to put it down are futile.  
        The gatorclaw jumps at me again, and I fire another shot to keep it on the ground, and then another and another until finally, it crashes onto the ground and lie before me, motionless. A small victory, but the sound of Gage’s gun and the constant smashing of the trailer rips me back into the moment.  
        I run to his side, but another forceful blow from the gatorclaw knocks us back, and the two of us fall to our knees, once more gripping the roof of the trailer to keep ourselves from falling over the side. The gatorclaw is unrelenting though, and another thrust of its massive body into our safe haven teeters us backward before the trailer starts falling forward completely.  
        “We’re going down!” Gage yells.  
        “Jump!” I yell before the trailer hits the ground, and the two of us launch ourselves forward, far away from the wreckage of our only bit of safety.  
        I hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of me, but when I look up, I see Gage is already to his knees, pointing his gun at the gatorclaw. Only, the creature doesn’t come for us. Its lower body is trapped beneath the trailer, and it claws viciously at the structure to try and break free, shrieking all the while.  
        “You good?” Gage asks as I push myself to my feet and grab my shotgun from the ground, but I don’t answer him. I move past him with my shotgun in my hands—closer to the gatorclaw. It’s quite the pathetic sight, and even though I typically would have no sympathy for such a creation, I want nothing more than to put it out of its misery.


	15. The Time Has Come (Cont'd)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett and Gage finish clearing Safari Adventure and revel in their victory.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit sexual content/explicit sexual language

        Gage and I find the skeleton of Doctor Hein hidden inside of the trailer—only identifiable by the name on his lab coat. In one of the pockets, the passcode to get into the cloning facility, and even though I don’t particularly relish the idea of taking on another gatorclaw, I’m ready to be done with Safari Adventure.  
        We make it back to the triangle house without crossing paths with any of the monsters, as Cito so eloquently describes them. But after reaching the terminal and logging the passcode, we hear the metal door click, and I feel a strong reluctance to continue. Really, there’s no desirable way to fight a deathclaw, and being in the confined space of the basement doesn’t instill a lot of faith in our efforts, especially if there’s more than one.  
        Which, I’m almost certain there will be.  
        Upon decending the stairs into the basement, we find ourselves in a spacious area with a few terminals present. An office space, more or less. But as I expected to find, a gatorclaw stomps its might foot on the ground, and Gage and I find ourselves in another battle of life and death. Though we manage to put the beast down in a reasonable amount of time, and before we know it, we find ourselves descending a set of concrete stairs, leading us to a much larger area of the basement where the floor is flooded.  
        “Well this sucks,” I gripe from the stairs. I glance at Gage.  
        “Ladies first.”  
        Of course I knew that’s what he’d say, but Gage is quick to follow behind. The water, it reaches my thighs and Gage’s knees and creates a less than desirable place to fight if necessary. But as we reach the middle of the room, a terminal in a caged area catches my eye, and I nudge Gage. “Think that’s the one?” he asks.  
        “I guess we’ll find out.” I start trudging through the water to get to the terminal. The room is mostly dark, a single light shining down on the terminal but not doing much else to illuminate the room.  
        I’m pleased to see that we found our terminal, and after following the prompts to shut down the replication machine, the sound of a large piece of machinery in the distance powering down makes me smile. “Yes.”  
        But the sound of heavy breathing coming from the side of me sends chills down my spine. I look to my left—to the darkened area of the room—and even though I can’t see anything, I feel something’s watching me. And that heavy breathing, it’s not coming from Gage or possibly any human.  
        The water surrounding my thighs rushes toward me as something creates a current with its movement, but before I can do anything, I feel Gage grab onto me and pull me out of the room, tossing me aside with so much force that I become submerged.  
        I inhale the murky water, kicking and waving my arms to reach the surface again as I do, and when I push myself upward, I gasp for air. But the inhalation of the water leaves me coughing, choking on the air. Though straight ahead of me, a white gatorclaw towers over Gage as he attempts to fight it off.  
        The gatorclaw swipes at him, knocking his gun from his hands and sending it under water. I struggle to get to my feet. “Hey!” I yell before firing a shot at the massive, white gatorclaw, trying my best to distract it from Gage while he scrambles to find his gun. I fire again, and the gatorclaw comes for me. But I know I’ll lose if I stay in the water. I can’t move as fast with it coming to my thighs.  
        I look to my left and see a small set of stairs leading to a narrow, caged in area. Some kind of control room, and I run for the closest bit of cover.  
        I duck inside and immediately hit the ground to avoid an incoming attack from the gatorclaw. And even though it seems I’ve backed myself into a corner, the beast doesn’t seem to be able to get into the room enough to reach me fully.  
        Still, its massive claws swipe at me while desperately trying to get into the room, and I scream and kick with every advance it makes before having enough sense to use my shotgun as my biggest defense. And even though its belly isn’t exposed, it doesn’t stop me from firing three rounds at the thing, right into its head.  
        But the gatorclaw’s self-preservation kicks in, and it lets out a mighty shriek before backing out of the doorway. I stand and run for the exit to continue firing at it while it backs away, and I advance down the steps. But it swipes at me, and I dive to my side to miss the attack. I hear Gage’s gun though, firing numerous rounds into the monster, lighting the room with his muzzle flash, and when the gatorclaw swipes at him, Gage jumps back, and I move in on it.  
        We go on like this for a bit, Gage stepping in when I have only seconds to dodge and attack and vice-versa. We’re constantly moving in and out on the giant, white beast, and our advances and retreats confuse the gatorclaw as it seems unsure of which opponent to focus on completely. But it doesn’t take long before Gage and I are side by side, and our unspoken bond tells us that now’s the time to really do some damage.  
        We back away onto the cement steps, and I fire a shot into the gatorclaw’s head, knocking it back a bit, no doubt due to its weakened condition. And when it’s belly is exposed, Gage unloads into him, and I do what I can to assist. Within seconds, the gatorclaw lets out a shriek and becomes rigid before falling forward, sending up a giant splash of water as it hits the ground and lie motionless.  
        We stare at the thing for a while, waiting for it to move or even make a sound. But it doesn’t, and I exhale heavily. “Was it just me? Or was that one harder to kill than the others?”  
        I sigh. “I don’t know if it was harder…or if fighting in water is just a real pain in the ass. Either way, it’s dead. And the replicator is shut down.”  
        “Well, then looks like it’s time to clean house,” Gage says with a grin on his face, and I just don’t see the allure of putting down gatorclaws. Sure, it feels good when they’re down, but the process is tedious, and so becomes the process of tracking down any other remaining in the park.  
        It takes hours. Some of them are easier to kill simply based on the location in which we find them. Some of them or more resilient, maybe having lived longer and having had more time to become stronger.  
        We find one in the theater area, but it seems it’s been wounded, so taking it down proves to be much easier than the others. We find another one hiding out in one of the bear caves, battling a Yao Guai inside for the territory, and before I can move in on them, Gage holds me back. “Let ‘em fight it out,” he says, and I kneel down next to him to watch the spectacle. The Yao Guai, fully grown. The gatorclaw, seemingly a runt. Still…it is a gatorclaw. “My money’s on the Yao Guai,” Gage says.  
        I snicker. “I’ll take that bet.”  
        But the Yao Guai is victorious, and before it sets its sights on us, Gage and I open fire on the best, successfully putting it out of its misery.  
        “Would you rather take on two fully grown Yao Guai, or an Alpha Deathclaw?” Gage asks while we walk through Safari Adventure, the only light guiding the way being the full moon in the sky.  
        I scoff. “Yao Guai.”  
        “Yeah, but there’s two of ‘em.”  
        “Still better than an Alpha Deathclaw.”  
        We walk the park for what feels like hours, and slowly, the number of gatorclaws we come across starts dwindling until it becomes similar to finding a needle in a haystack. And when we pass the Welcome Center for the third time in a row, Gage stops walking. “I think we got ‘em all, boss.”  
        I consider for a moment while turning to look at him. “It’s an awfully big risk, letting the Pack move in without knowing for sure.”  
        He nods. “Yeah. But we can’t make something appear if it’s just not there anymore.”  
        Also a valid point, and I’m starting to think he may be right about the job having been completed. Still, the risk is huge. Bloodworms, a mirelurk or two, raiders can handle. But the gatorclaws are so much stronger, bigger than the other hostiles we’ve come across. And I can’t shake the feeling that something bad might happen to the Pack if I just let them move in as soon as I hang the flag.  
        I sigh. “Maybe we should do some kind of…probation period. Have Cito keep an eye out for more of them for the next week or so. Just to be sure.”  
        “I think that’s a fine idea,” Gage says. “We’ll let Mason know as soon as we get back. Now can we get this thing hung already? Don’t too much like bein’ out here in the dead of night,” he says, and his expression seems solemn, for some reason.  
        “All right, let’s go.”  
        We climb a metal staircase leading to the top of the triangle house, and I attach the Pack’s flag to the halyard. Gage looks at me with the rope in his hands, waiting for me to give him the go ahead. “You ready for this?” he asks, and I nod. “Because we might have some backlash comin’ from the Disciples as soon as word gets out.”  
        I consider. He’s right, Nisha’s not going to be happy. But maybe she should have taken that into consideration before threatening Gage and I during our first meeting. And although I’m fully aware that my acts of vengeance will only antagonize her, I just can’t stand the idea of her and her Disciples having more territory than I think they deserve.  
        Plus, I made a promise to Mason. “Go ahead,” I say, and Gage lifts the flag as high up as it will go. When he releases the halyard, the two of us step back and admire the waving flag in the moonlight.  
        “You actually did it. Nuka-World is ours now. All of it.” Gage says.  
        “We did it. And why do you sound so surprised?”  
        He shakes his head. “I didn’t mean anythin’ by it, boss. Just…you gotta understand, we ain’t never been on ground this solid before. And it’s a nice feeling. Gives me hope for the future of this place.” He seems burdened by something though. Something he maybe wants to say but is fighting the urge to for whatever reason.  
        “Is that…all you wanted to say, Gage?”  
        He nods. “Yeah. For now. Don’t really matter though, does it? You’ll be heading out soon as we find a decent replacement for ya anyway.”  
        “That was the deal,” I say. But I don’t wish to discuss such matters right now, in the darkness of Safari Adventure. For now, all I want to do is head back to Nuka-Town, talk to Mason, and then rest up for whatever lies ahead. Because finding someone to take my place and rule over Nuka-World, it could either be very easy…or near impossible. “We should…head back.”  
        Gage nods. “Yeah. Lead the way.”  
        The two of us make our way to the metal staircase and start descending to ground level. But before I can even set my foot on the ground, a gatorclaw launches out from one of the cages, swiping at me as it does.  
        “Shit!” I yell and fall back on the steps, knocking Gage back as I do. I drop my shotgun off the stairs onto the ground below, but another swipe from the gatorclaw makes me reconsider reaching for it.  
        “Come on!” Gage yells while grabbing my arm and pulling me back up the steps. I struggle to stand and move back with him. The gatorclaw can’t seem to climb the steps to get to us, but without my shotgun, this could take a while.  
        I pull my pistol from my thigh, but after firing six shots into the thing, I realize that it’s not doing anything. Like a freaking BB gun. But Gage continues to shoot at it as it fights its way onto the metal staircase. “I’m runnin’ low on ammo,” Gage grunts.  
        “Of course you are,” I groan, and another swipe from the gatorclaw on the metal staircase knocks us off balance and into the railing. “Oh, this is not gonna end well!”  
        But some kind of force knocks the gatorclaw to the side, and only when its attention turns away from us, do I see Cito fighting it off with some kind of large, metal bat. “Cito?!” I yell, completely and utterly thankful for his impeccable timing. “Gage, shoot it!”  
        “Cito or the gatorclaw?”  
        “Gage!”  
        “All right, all right,” Gage groans while raising his gun to inflict even more damage on the gatorclaw while Cito keeps it distracted with his melee attacks. But it isn’t long before I hear the clicking sound of Gage’s rifle, and he lowers his gun. “That’s it boss, I’m outta ammo,” he says.  
        “We have to help.”  
        “Nah, he’s doin’ fine on his own.”  
        Cito lands a blow to the gatorclaw’s head, knocking it backward and closer to us. Gage pulls me back, up a few more steps to create some distance, but another blow from Cito sends the gatorclaw to the ground. And it seems Tarzan is victorious.  
        I watch in awe of the gorilla man, able to take down a gatorclaw with just a bat. Though I could have figured just based on his stature. It seems he’d even give Mason a run for his money.  
        I grip the railing and descend the metal staircase to get to Cito, and I’m amazed to see that he hardly looks winded at all. “Cito…thank you.”  
        “Hey, how’d you know we were here?” Gage asks.  
        “Lady gone for long time. Cito think monster make her dead. Cito came to find lady.”  
        He forces me to smile. “That was very nice of you, Cito.”  
        “Lady done? No more monsters?” he asks.  
        “There will always be monsters, but…it looks like the ones that were here are gone.”  
        “Cito so happy. How Cito thank new friend?”  
        I glance to Gage, though he seems discontent with the presence of my new friend. “I have some…friends moving in here in about a week or so. But if you play it cool, we can all get along. Can you do that?”  
        “Cito trust you. Cito like more new friends,” he says, and I’m so relieved to hear him say so. But it looks like on top of speaking to Mason about the probationary period, he’ll also have to assure his Pack don’t attack Cito and his…family. “Look, I need you to keep your family inside for about a week. And keep your eyes out for anymore monsters, just in case we missed some. But I’ll be back to check in with you in a few days, all right?”  
        Cito nods. “Cito keep family inside until lady come back. Cito look for more monsters.”  
        “Don’t worry. They won’t keep coming back.” I turn away from Cito and fetch my shotgun from under the metal staircase. “We’re going to be leaving now, Cito. Are you going to be okay?”  
        He nods. “Cito be okay. New friend teach Cito how to be strong. Cito want new friend to have this,” he says while handing me his metal bat. I study the thing, impressed with the assembly, and it’s really no wonder he packed such a wallop with this thing in his hands.  
        “Thank you,” I say to him. “But you should hold onto it for now. At least until we know for sure all the monsters are gone.” I hand it back to him. “I’ll see you in a few days,” I say to him and then look to Gage. “Ready?”  
        “Let’s get the hell outta here,” Gage grumbles and starts leading the way to the exit of Safari Adventure.  
        On the way back to Nuka-Town, we’re mostly quiet, lost in the euphoria of our most recent success, and the prospect of leaving Nuka-World sometime in the near future has me feeling all the more victorious. Mostly because I know Macready needs to hear from me. All of them need to hear from me, no doubt having assumed me for dead days ago.  
        When we get back to Nuka-Town, we immediately make our way to the nest to inform Mason about the week long probation period to assure all gatoclaws are gone. And though he’s not thrilled about the prospect, he seems pleased that I kept my promise to him. I tell him about Cito and his family. About how they are to remain unharmed, and Mason is willing to abide my request so long as Cito “doesn’t get in their way.” Though I can’t imagine why he would.  
        By the time we make it back to Fizztop Mountain, the Pack’s celebration for being handed a new territory is in full swing, echoing throughout the park. And it’s only then do I realize that no Disciples are in sight. Not even on guard duty outside of their home base. It’s an eerie thing to see, honestly. Because I’m not exactly sure how Nisha is handling the news. At least with a few Disciples being present, I can somewhat determine how they’re taking the news. But Gage doesn’t seem to notice, so I say nothing.  
        When we make it upstairs, Gage retreats to his own quarters for the night, and I won’t lie, it sort of disappoints me. I figured the two of us would revel in our victory together—reflect on everything that happened. Maybe even have a celebratory drink—even though Gage avoids that sort of thing, I figured he’d make an exception.  
        But his taciturn nature and eagerness to retreat to his own quarters makes me realize that Gage doesn’t want to be bothered. He just wants to be left alone, for whatever reason. So I decide to just go to sleep and attempt conversation in the morning.  
        But the next day, Gage remains withdrawn, only coming to see me once to check in and see if I need anything. And to basically tell me to take a few days to rest before jumping into the whole “finding a replacement” ordeal. And when I agree, Gage gives me a faint smile before running off to the parks to check in with the raiders.  
        It’s then that I realize he’s discontent with the idea of me leaving, only giving me a bit of warmth when I agree to putting off finding the next Overboss for a few days. And when Gage returns that evening, I find myself drawn to his quarters.  
        “Gage?” I say while entering the dimly lit room. The only light being from the fires in trash bins, and the only sound coming from the raider radio station.  
        I see Gage sitting in one of the chairs surrounding the massive table in the middle of the room, smoking a cigarette. He looks up at me. “Yeah, boss?”  
        I hesitate to continue. Mostly because any attempt to talk to Gage about his “feelings” doesn’t really end well. Too cold and callus—at least he pretends to be—to ever really open up. At least not since the day at Kiddie Kingdom. “Can we talk?”  
        “Sure, boss. Whatcha need?”  
        I cross the room and lean on the table facing him, and he watches me as he exhales a cloud of smoke. “Is there something bothering you? Something you want to talk about?” I ask, and he seems confused.  
        “What makes you think that?”  
        I shrug. “You’ve just been acting kind of…withdrawn since we finished with Safari Adventure. I mean, I figured you’d be happy, celebrating along with the Pack, but…I don’t know, it seems like something’s bothering you.” He takes another drag of his cigarette, but the awkward silence between us is unbearable. I let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Or maybe because you got what you wanted out of me, you feel like you just don’t need to put in the effort.”  
        “What makes you think I go what I wanted out of you?”  
        I’m at a loss, and his response hurts me for some reason. “I did what you wanted me to do. The parks are clear, Gage, are we…are we not okay?”  
        “We’re fine, boss.”  
        “Scarlett,” I say forcefully, and it seems my tone of voice surprises him a bit.  
        “Scarlett. We’re fine. Just…not really lookin’ forward to you leavin’ is all. I mean, the way I see it, you been here for only a couple weeks and made more progress than Colter did in a year.    And I can’t help but feel that when you go, you’ll take all that hope for the future you’ve done so well to put into all of us. So…yeah, I’m not too thrilled about that.”  
        “We had a deal,” I snap.  
        “Yeah, we did. And I don’t plan on shitting all over that. But I never said I had to be happy about watching you leave.”  
        “I’m not leaving yet, Gage. We still have to find someone to take over…”  
        “Yeah, I know that. But it’s only a matter of time. And I get the feeling that whoever it is that takes your place just won’t be able to live up to our expectations.”  
        “Why be so negative about all this?”  
        “I’m bein’ realistic,” he says forcefully, and now it’s my turn to be taken aback. The look on his face, it’s hateful. Angry as he diverts his eyes to the ground, perhaps to detract that hatred from me. “I been runnin’ with raiders my whole life. Seen a lot of the gangs tear each other apart because the boss didn’t know how to run things. And I usually make it a point to get the hell out before shit goes south. But you, you’re different than all the other bosses I’ve come in contact with. You know how to lead, how to take care of your people. And you don’t complacent. It’s taken my whole life to find someone like you. And what? You expect me to throw you a going away party?”  
        His response saddens me, but I’ve known more good leaders than bad. Even Elder Maxson was a good leader, and I get the feeling it’s because of who these people are…their inherent selfish behavior that makes them poor leaders. “Maybe you should stop running with raiders.”  
        Gage laughs, but it’s a condescending laugh. One that makes me regret even saying anything. “What, and join the Minutemen with you?”  
        I shrug. “I’d gladly take you on if that’s what you wanted, Gage. You’d be by my side the whole time.”  
        His expression softens a bit, and for a moment, it seems as though my offer really moves him. Moves him enough to even consider it. But he looks away from me, his true nature shining through, not allowing him to ever entertain such an idea. “Nah. This is where I belong. I’ve known it since I was a kid. Just wish you’d realize that you belong here too.”  
        I shake my head. “I don’t,” I say weakly. “The fatal flaw in your grand scheme, Gage. I’m not a raider. And I never will be.” He doesn’t seem pleased with my response, not in the least. But the two of us have reached an impasse. As much as I want to close the gap between us—reach out to him and let him know that he actually means more to me than he thinks, Gage just won’t allow me to. Not with his bitterness of me leaving consuming him.  
        I push myself away from the table and start making my way back to my quarters, but the sound of something smashing startles me, and when I turn to look at Gage, he’s standing, facing me, livid. “Why can’t you see that we belong together, Scarlett?” he yells, stunning me, and himself, it seems. Because he retreats, his expression softening once more when he’s realized what he’s said. “I…I didn’t mean like that. I just meant…you know, we’re partners.”  
        I nod. “I know what you meant,” I say, more to ease him than anything. “You’ll always be my partner, Gage. And whenever…if ever…the time comes for us to fight side by side again…you know I’ll have your back.” I consider. “Unless you set your sights on the Minutemen.”  
        But a desperate expression remains on his face. The same sort of desperation I saw in him after taking out Colter when he first asked for me help. He shrugs. “It’s just all kinds of fucked up. But sure, I get it. We’re from two different worlds, neither us are willing to compromise. So what more can we do?”  
        “I did compromise. So maybe it’s your turn to bend a little. Make this an amicable split. Let’s not waste the time we have left together on something we can’t change. Because I still need your help.”  
        Gage lowers himself back into his chair and diverts his attention to the ground. He seems to be thinking intently about something, but all he says is “Sure, boss. Whatever you say.” I turn to leave him. “Sit with me for a while,” he says, pulling my attention back to him, and I’m more than happy to oblige him.  
        We sit there for a while in silence, awkwardly trying to figure out something to say to one another. But as time passes and new topics come up, our conversation starts to come with ease.   And before I know it, hours pass and the two of us still converse, reaching the point where hardly any silence fills the gap between us.  
        Gage rolls me a cigarette while I stare off into nothing, reminiscing about life before the war. And life with Nate. “I met Nate when I was in college. He was serving in the military, and…we kind of just hit it off. But he was gone a lot for the first…I dunno, six months of our relationship.”  
        “Oh yeah?” Gage asks and then lights my cigarette for me.  
        “Yeah. But I didn’t mind, really. I was busy with school, and…I didn’t really want anything serious at the time.” Gage hands me my cigarette, and I take a long drag.  
        “Sounds like things got serious though.”  
        “It took some time, that’s for sure. We dated for two years before we got married. And we were married for three before we had Shaun.” Gage nods, and I can’t help but chuckle while exhaling my cigarette smoke. “You don’t care about any of this, do you?”  
        He smirks. “I like the sound of your voice though. It’s soothing, so…by all means, keep talkin’,” he says, but I don’t wish to talk to him about Nate. I’m not even sure why the topic came up at all. “You miss him?”  
        I nod. “Yeah, I do. He was a good man. But I’m also sort of relieved that…he never had to witness what became of this world. I only wish I could have spared Shaun that realization as well.”   And for the first time since the beginning of our conversation, silence fills the room. “What about you, Gage? Ever been in love?”  
        “In love? I hate that fuckin’ word. No, ain’t ever been in love.”  
        I’m skeptical. I don’t believe Gage to be a sociopath. He’s shown a considerable amount of feeling since I’ve known him, so I find it hard to believe he’s never felt that way for a person in all his years. “Really. Never?”  
        “Nah. I’ve liked woman in the past, but…never really progressed to anything more serious than that. Never really wanted it to, to be honest.”  
        “Other raiders?” I ask, unimpressed.  
        “Some of ‘em, yeah. But what did you expect when I spend most my time with raiders anyway?”  
        I shake my head. “Not much, I guess.”  
        “There was this one girl that kinda held my attention for a while. Some…farmer’s daughter out in the Commonwealth. Name was Mary. Pretty little thing, had a lot of sass and…personality. Used to give us raiders alotta shit whenever we came through. Used to give me alotta shit, but I found it more humorous than anything. Endearing.”  
        “You fell for a farmer’s daughter?” I ask, somewhat taken aback and amused.  
        “If you could even call it that. I’m not really sure what to call it. I liked lookin’ at her. Liked talkin’ to her, even if she spat insults most of the time. But she was tough. I could see it in her, she had a lot of fight, and I respected that. It was Something her parents were lacking. Made it all too easy to hit ‘em up for supplies.”  
        “What happened? Did you guys…you know?”  
        Gage laughs. “Nah, she wouldn’t have anything to do with me. Pretty sure she was disgusted by the sight of me. But…eventually, Mary got tired of watchin’ her yella-bellied parents get taken for all they had. And one night when we came through, she pulled a gun on us. Got put down.”  
        I’m horrified. “You killed her,” I accuse.  
        “No, not me. I wouldn’t have done that to her,” he says, and his expression fades into sadness. Some sort of regret, perhaps. “She wasn’t gonna shoot us. I knew she wasn’t. Girl was smarter than that. She just tried asserting some dominance in her home, and the leader of the gang didn’t much appreciate that. So he killed her.”  
        “Do you feel bad about that?”  
        “Yeah, that one stays with me. And it wasn’t just ‘cause I liked the girl. But if she coulda just broke away from her parents, she might still be alive. Guess it kinda reminded me of my own past. Where I might’ve ended up if I didn’t find it in myself to leave.”  
        “You think you would have defended your parents at some point if you stayed?”  
        “Shit, I dunno. Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, it shouldn’t be the child that protects the parents. Should be the other way around. Just wish Mary’s parents woulda realized that before it was too late.”  
        The sadness I see in him, it’s a beautiful thing. Mostly because he’s not one to wear his heart on his sleeve, and even in his words he keeps from revealing too much. But it’s the look on his face. The sorrow in his eye that bares his soul. His eye seems heavy.  
        “You tired, Gage?”  
        He shakes his head. “No. Just thinkin’. Wonderin’ how this all is gonna play out.”  
        “How what’s gonna play out?”  
        He stares at me for a moment, deep in thought about something. “You know that night you came to my bed. When I realized what it is you wanted from me, I couldn’t really believe what was happenin’. I mean, I never thought a woman like you would ever even consider a guy like me. Figured you had some guy waitin’ on you back at home, even if you never admitted to it. A real hero type of guy.” My mind wanders to Macready, and I feel guilty for what I must be putting him through, even if we are just friends. “But the time we spent together that night…I dunno. Made me feel like the only guy in the world. And I liked feelin’ that way. But then it was like it meant nothing to you. Or even worse, you were disgusted by what happened. And then that didn’t feel so great, comin’ from you. Someone I care about and respect.”  
        I feel my expression soften. “Gage…”  
        “I don’t know why I’m tellin’ you all this. I hate talkin’ about shit like this. But maybe I figure if I’m more open about what I’m thinkin’, you’ll consider staying. Even if just for a little longer.”  
        “Do you really care about me, Gage? Or do you just care about the future of Nuka-World?” I ask, skeptical.  
        “You know I care about the future of Nuka-World. More than anything. But it doesn’t mean I don’t care about you and what happens to ya. I like having you by my side, having you close. Not really sure what any of that means, but…it seems like I’ll never get to know.”  
        Oh man, he’s killing me. The way he’s looking at me, it’s enough to break my heart. I want him to know how much I care about him too, but I feel as though he won’t listen if I tell him. Just have some comeback about me staying to prove it. “I wasn’t disgusted by you, Gage. It’s…quite the opposite.”  
        “Yeah…well forgive me if I just don’t see it that way, after the way you acted.” Seems I hurt him more than he let on. I stand, and Gage looks up at me, a nervousness in his eyes. “You leavin’?” he asks, but I shake my head.  
        I move closer to him, and he watches me, intrigued by my actions. And when I slowly start to climb on top of him, Gage leans back in his chair. I feel his hands drape loosely on my hips, and already, his breathing becomes heavier. He leans his head back against the chair, opening up his neck for me to place a few soft kisses all the way up to his jawline.  
        “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Scarlett,” he says quietly.  
        I bring my hand to the side of his face, and he picks his head up to look at me. I nod. “I know I don’t.” I kiss his lips gently, the feeling of which sends what feels like an electric current throughout my body. Not like the first time we kissed—which wasn’t so bad either. But this time, there’s no guilt behind my actions. No moment where I consider otherwise or even question my motives.  
        Because I care about Gage. Very much. It feels as though we’ve known each other much longer than we have. There’s a closeness between us that I just can’t explain, but I haven’t felt it with anyone in such a long time.  
        Gage runs his hands up my back as our kiss deepens, and the feeling of his tongue against mine is a clear indication of good things to come. But he breaks apart from my lips, and even when I try to kiss him again, he pulls his head back. “We shouldn’t be doin’ this, boss,” he says quietly and rather unconvincingly.  
        I kiss the side of his mouth. “Tell me to stop and I will.”  
        But he only lets out a quivering breath as I move my body on top of his. “Don’t stop,” he whispers, and this time, he doesn’t pull away when I kiss his lips. We fall deeper into each other in this moment. The passion between us, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.  
        Gage runs one of his hands through my hair and grabs a fistful to pull my mouth further onto his. His breath is heavy against me as his other hand moves to my backside and grips me tightly. “Fuck,” he mutters. “You’re makin’ it damn hard for me to wanna let you leave here.”  
        I smile slightly and then kiss the side of his face before working my way down to his neck. I pull away and lean back a bit to start pulling his shirt from him, and Gage is all too willing to assist in my efforts to undress him. There he sits beneath me, chest bare. His scares much more noticeable in the lighting around the table. But the firmness of him…the way his stomach moves in and out with each heavy breath he takes, it drives me wild. Ignites a fire in me, alerting some feral beast inside of me that now’s the time to unleash everything I have and everything I’ve ever wanted to do to this man.  
        I want nothing more than to please him for all the things he’s done for me.  
        I start kissing his neck again and slowly make my way down to his chest. When I climb off of him, Gage grabs my arms to pull me back—only to give up his efforts when I get to my knees and move between his legs.  
        I start kissing his stomach, all the way down to the rim of his jeans, and when I look up at him, he’s watching me intently. Staring at me, curious about what I might do next. My hands move to his knees and then upward against his inner thighs, and Gage opens his legs a bit wider for me. I run my hand over the bulge in his jeans, and Gage brings his hands to my arms again to try and pull me back up.  
        He wants me on top of him, but I suppose he just hasn’t figured out what I’m doing quite yet. Maybe it’s been a while since a woman’s pleasured him in this way. Or maybe it’s not a common practice anymore. But when I unbuckle his belt and undo his jeans, Gage’s tug on my arms become less forceful.  
        I kiss his stomach, down to the rim of his boxer briefs while running my hand over him through the fabric. “God damn…” he says so quietly that I can barely hear him at all. I run my free hand up his chest, and Gage grabs my palm and kisses my fingers. “You done teasin’ me now?” he asks, desperation in his voice, but I shake my head.  
        “No.” I pull my hand away from him and drag my nails down his stomach. And even though Gage sees this as me “teasing” him, he’s loving every minute of what I’m doing to him. I bring my fingers inside the rim of his boxer briefs and pull them down enough to reveal the head of his erection, pre-cum beading out of the tip. Gage brings his hands to my arms. Not even to pull me up anymore, but lightly trace his fingers along my flesh.  
        I kiss the flesh next to his dick before lightly brushing my lips against the head of him and then running my tongue along that sensitive part of him. His breath catches in his throat at the feeling, and I look up at him while running my tongue over him again—removing any bit of pre-cum that came out of him.  
        “Jesus Christ, Scarlett,” he groans.  
        I shake my head. “It’s nothing, baby,” I whisper and then wrap my lips around the head of his cock, and Gage becomes tense at the feeling. His heavy breaths, they’re quivering now as I grab hold of him and start jerking him off while inserting more of him into my mouth, further and further until I reach the base of him. And it’s enough to make me choke—something I’m certain he’ll enjoy.  
        “Oh, fuck,” he grunts while bringing his hands to my head, his fingers becoming entangled in my hair while assisting my movements up and down on his cock. And he’s so aroused by this, I feel him throbbing in my mouth. Yes, it seems it has been a while since I woman has done this to him.  
        I enjoy doing this for him. I enjoy the pleasure that it gives him, and hopefully, after this he won’t think I find him disgusting anymore. Because nothing could be further from the truth. I want him, all of him. Every inch of him forever.  
        Gage’s grip on my hair becomes tighter, and he starts grunting more and more frequently, even becoming so lost in the feeling that he starts thrusting his hips upward, pushing himself further into my throat. I moan when he does this. To let him know that I’m very much enjoying every second of this. But after a few moments, he stops thrusting upward, and his panting becomes louder and louder.  
        “Scarlett, you have to stop,” he moans, his low, gruff voice sending chills down my body. I don’t want to stop. He groans. A booming sound coming from the core of him. “Stop, Scarlett,” he says, practically begging. “You’re gonna make me come if you don’t.”  
        As tempting as it sounds to have him release himself into my mouth, I still want him to fuck me before the night is over. So I remove my lips from around him and look up at him. He grabs my arms again and pulls me back up and on top of him before his lips crash onto mine. And the bit of “teasing” I did for him while on my knees, it released something inside of him. That animalistic part that I was so desperately hoping would come out and play.  
        He devours me, my lips, my tongue, my mouth. His hands grip my backside and he grinds himself upward against me. I pull my shirt off, and he tosses it aside, giving me the chance to unhook my bra and throw it to the floor.  
        Before I even have a chance to look at him again, Gage’s mouth covers one of my nipples while one hand stays on my ass and the other grabs my other breast. But the feeling of his warm mouth, his tongue encircling my nipple, it forces that aching desire between my legs to become even more powerful and desperate than ever before. And now, I just want him to fuck me.  
        “Gage,” I moan while running my hand through his haphazard mohawk. The feeling, it’s absolutely exhilarating, and I feel as though I’m carried off to a different world completely. A world of only pleasure. “Gage, fuck me,” I beg.  
        He picks me up and carries me to the table, setting me down on the edge before undoing my jeans and ripping them off of me, followed by my underwear. He moves in between my legs and covers my mouth with his, giving me another wet, messy, passionate kiss as our bodies press together.  
        He’s radiating heat, and the feeling of his hard cock against my stomach sends a wave of heat through my own body. I want this now more than ever. My core tightens from the feeling, and I can’t keep my hands off of him. I grab his cock and start jerking him off while reaching my other hand around to grab onto his sweet ass. Because, oh my god, I’ve never seen a man with such a perfect ass.  
        “You want my dick inside you now?” he whispers against my lips, and I bite my lip and nod. “Yeah? Tell me how bad you want it, Scarlett.”  
        I whimper, my desperation getting the best of me. “I want it so bad, Gage.”  
        He bites his lip and a deep groan comes from him before grabbing my leg and flipping me over onto my stomach. He pulls me back a bit and places one of his hands on the back of my head to keep me in place. “Don’t fuckin’ movet.”  
        “I won’t move.” But it’s absolute bullshit. As soon as I feel the head of his cock enter inside of me, I start to squirm in pleasure. But Gage’s grip on my head becomes more firm, so I attempt to remain still.  
        Though when he forces himself inside of me completely, I can’t comply with his request. He keeps my head in place, but I can’t stop myself from smashing my hand into the table and shouting out in pain, but mostly pleasure.  
        “Shit,” Gage moans and remains still for a moment. He removes his hand from my head and digs his fingers into my hips, giving himself a moment to compose himself before he starts fucking me. And it feels fucking delicious.  
        “Harder,” I beg.  
        “Anything for you, Scarlett,” he says and then starts fucking me harder, faster. His fingers, the dig into my flesh, and it hurts, but I don’t by any means want it to stop. He hits a spot deep inside of me, one that with every thrust grows more intense, demanding to be freed and released onto him.  
        I start whining at the feeling, and Gage’s moans become louder and more frequent. His grunting, the way he forces my hips back to meet his advances, the way my ass crashes into him with each pull—no, I don’t want this to end. But this growing desire inside of me becomes unbearable.  
        I’m not sure what to do, but I’m writhing against the table. My nails are digging into the wood. I want to grab hold of something, but I don’t know what. I reach my hands back Gage’s on my hips, and he grabs hold of my wrists and pins them behind my back. And I howl in delicious pain. “That’s right, baby. Scream for me,” he grunts. “Let me know how much you like havin’ my dick inside of you.”  
        His words, his actions, his touch…it’s all enough to send me over the edge. And that explosion of sheer pleasure and desire is released from more core and moves outward onto him. It’s so intense, so visceral that I can’t keep from crying at the feeling. “Gage!” I scream.  
        He releases my hands and leans over me while continuing to fuck me. “Fuck yeah…yell my name. I want everyone in Nuka-World to know who’s fuckin’ you.”  
        My heart is pounding; face is red hot. I rest my forehead on the table, and Gage plants his hands on either side of me. He’s getting close. I can tell by the change in his breathing, the frequency of his grunting. “Don’t you dare fucking stop,” I demand, because my orgasm is in full swing.  
        But after a few seconds, Gage rests his forehead on my back. “I can’t hold it in much longer, boss. You’re just…too damn sexy.”  
        I throw my head back and moan, enjoying the last few moments of my orgasm as the feeling starts to die down inside of me. Gage groans and then bites into my shoulder, and I bring my hand to the side of his face. “Now, baby. Come now.”  
        He lets out a quivering breath and thrusts inside of me a few more times before pulling out of me. He flips me over onto my back, and I watch as he jerks himself off until he shoots himself all over my lower abdomen.  
        “Oh…oh, fuck…” He winces and then lets out another one of his booming groans. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ…” I look up at him, standing over me and panting. His eye shut tight and his hard cock still dripping in his hand. Finally, he looks at me. He stares down at me for a while with a stoic expression before grabbing a nearby rag to clean the mess off of me.  
        Gage tosses the rag aside and then backs away from me, allowing me to sit upright on the edge of the table. And then the two of us just stare at each other for a moment, and I’m not sure what to think. A nervous laugh escapes me. “Do you…want me to leave?”  
        “No. I want you to stay.” He extends his hand to me, and I take it from him, allowing him to lead us over to his bed.  
        He climbs inside and then holds the blankets up for me to move next to him. When I do, he lowers the blankets onto me and moves into my back, wrapping his arms around me as he does.      “Are you okay?” I ask.  
        He nods. “I’m fine. Just…a little light-headed is all. I ain’t come that hard in a long time,” he says, and I can’t help but smile. But Gage kisses my shoulder and then buriers his head into my neck. And within minutes, the sound of his heavy breathing leads me to believe that our romp took a lot out of him. And now, he’s fallen asleep.


	16. Crazy He Calls Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett pays Nisha a visit.*

        I’m not sure how much time has passed before I awake still in Gage’s bed, but judging by how refreshed I feel, I assume it to be at least morning now. My eyes flutter open, and I look to Gage, sound asleep next to me. Still wearing that damn eyepatch, and I’m tempted to take it off for him. Though I suspect he has his reasons for not having removed it in my presence yet.   Maybe a trust thing.  
        Still, I can’t help but smile while looking at his stupid, handsome face. And even though I’m a bit sore from the night we had, I don’t regret a second of the time we spent together. If anything, I just want him to wake up so we can have at it again, though I deny my intemperance to him. Work needs to be done today. Dirty work—the sort I’m not looking forward to in the least.  
        I move closer to Gage and gently run my index finger over his lips before placing a soft kiss on them. I don’t wish to wake him. He looks like he needs all the sleep he can get, poor guy. So I’m careful while climbing out of his bed and I tiptoe across the room to retrieve my clothes before making my way back to my own quarters.  
        The sky is light blue, too early for the sun to start breaking over the mountains. And even though work needs to be done, it seems I’ll have to wait a bit longer before setting out to do what I need to do. I just hope Gage doesn’t wake up before that time comes.  
        I tend to myself as much as Nuka-World allows—cleaning myself with some purified water and a rag, using some bottled up soaps I managed to talk Lizzie into giving me. I may have told her that convincing Mason to take Safari Adventure over the bottling plant proved to be more difficult than it really was, and she seemed all too willing to supply me with some very nice smelling soaps. Something that’s a home-kept secret among the Operators.  
        No wonder they all look so nice all the time.  
        I brush my teeth with some fruit leather I stashed away behind the counter, but I suspect Gage has been getting into my supply, because I’m running low. But one habit he hasn’t adopted from me—using vodka as mouthwash. Sure, it doesn’t do much in the way of smelling nice, but it cleans the bacteria out. And I can’t have my teeth rotting out of my skull.  
        By the time I’m finished cleansing myself and I’m dressed, the sky is light pink. Still too early to make my way out to the nest, so I keep myself busy in my quarters. For the first time since being in Nuka-World, I feel the strong desire to clean the mess Colter left behind. And I’m not sure why I feel the need. Perhaps to make my living arrangements more comfortable. Even though I won’t be here much longer.  
        At least I don’t think I will. I’m not entirely sure anymore. I know that I don’t want to be Overboss, that’s for sure. But I don’t know if I’m willing to leave Gage behind. Because he’s managed to fill a void inside of me, one that was ripped open after the death of Hancock. Yes, Gage has managed to make all the bad shit just kind of…disappear for a while, though I assume not forever.  
        But by the time the sun is shining bright and I start to see raiders roaming around the park below, I know it’s time to put my cleaning duties aside for now, even though I only managed to clear out the bar and counter space. God damn, Colter was a slob.  
        I gather my pistol and attach it to my thigh, along with the knife Nisha gave me. Not because I want to wear her knife over Hancock’s. But if I’m going to see her…speak with her about the park assignments, it might be good to show some sort of appreciation for her. Or maybe she’ll see it as a slap in the face.  
        I’m really not sure which I prefer. But a knock comes to my door and shortly after, Gage enters, fully clothed and ready to take on the day, his armor in hand. He stops in the doorway and stares at me for a while, a look of vulnerability on his face. “Hey, boss. Just wanted to come check-in with ya. See if you need anything.”  
        I shake my head. “I don’t need anything.” He seems uncomfortable, and I can only assume it’s because I feel guilty about my attempts to leave without telling him what I’m up to. And I’m certain that slight panic is plastered on my face, though he probably assumes it’s for different reasons.  
        Gage nods. “Okay.” He stares at me a bit longer, and his uncomfortable, vulnerable expression, it fades into suspicion. “You goin’ somewhere?”  
        “Uh…” I can’t lie to him. “Yes. I have something to do.”  
        “Oh yeah? What’s that?”  
        I clear my throat. “Uh…I thought it might be a, uh…a good idea to go and pay Nisha a visit. Try and ease the tension before she does something stupid.”  
        “And how do you plan on doin’ that?” he asks.  
        “Um…I was just kind of going to wing it.”  
        His eye narrows. “You fuckin’ with me?”  
        “Sort of. No, you know that Red Rocket station right outside of Kiddie Kingdom?” Gage nods. “Well, I figure I’ll offer up that location to her. Have her set up an outpost out there, keep an eye out for any threats that might get too close. And I’m sure she’d appreciate the extra space.”  
        Gage nods, and I take it as tacit agreement. “All right. Well let’s go then…”  
        “No!” I say, much too conspicuously, and it sort of takes Gage aback. “I just, uh…I think it’s best I do this alone.” He raises an eyebrow to me. “Well, not alone. I was going to ask Mason to come, but…”  
        “Mason. Why would you go and do that?” he asks, and he is not pleased with how this conversation is going. And neither am I.  
        “Well…he and Nisha get along…” they absolutely don’t. “And I just feel like I could use him to kind of…diffuse the situation. If it even needs diffusing, I’m…not exactly sure how any of this is going to go.”  
        Gage takes a step toward me, and I can just see the disappointment on his face. “That’s supposed to be my job. I’m your right hand man, Scarlett.”  
        “Yes, you are. You absolutely are,” I say delicately. “I just…” I can’t lie to him anymore, but it doesn’t mean I have to be forthcoming with the truth. “I don’t want you in there, Gage.”  
        The disappointment on his face, it turns into anger. Disgust, even. “You don’t want me around you. Just come out and say it.”  
        I shake my head. “That’s not…”  
        Gage throws his armor against the bar in anger. “Can’t believe I fell for this shit again. And I shoulda known when I woke up and saw you snuck out in the middle of the night, but damn…”  
        I feel awful. “Hey, hey, hey…” I say while moving toward him. “Gage, it’s not like that.” I grab his arm, but he jerks it away from me.  
        “What’s it like then, Scarlett? Cuz by the looks of it, you’re actin’ all crazy again like before. Like you don’t want me around, like you regret what we did,” he says, rather aggressively.  
        “Gage, stop,” I say while bringing my hands to his face. “I want you around. I do. I almost woke you up this morning just to talk to you, but you looked like you needed more sleep.” A part of him believes me. A small part. “Gage…” I kiss his lips, and he barely returns the gesture. “Look, I can’t tell you why I don’t want you there.”  
        “We’re supposed to be honest with each other, Scarlett.”  
        I nod. “I know. But nothing good will come of you knowing this. So no, I’m not going to tell you.” He sighs and turns his head away from me, but I pull him back. “Can you just trust me?” I can’t tell him the reason I don’t want him there is because I’m scared for his life. I can’t tell him all the things Nisha promised to do to him if I let her down. It would kill him, after all the work he put into bringing the raiders together. And I’m not one-hundred percent certain that Nisha won’t have him killed on sight.  
        Gage nods. “Okay…yeah, I trust you. Just wish you’d tell me what’s up.”  
        I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. But I promise, it has nothing to do with wanting space from you.” I kiss him again, and this time, Gage returns my affections even more so than I expected by wrapping his arms around me and deepening the kiss.  
        “Should I be concerned about somethin’?” he asks after pulling away from my lips.  
        I shake my head. “Not yet, but…I’ll let you know if that time comes. Just, uh…just promise me you won’t come storming in there unannounced, okay?”  
        He exhales heavily, studying me with skepticism on his face. “Yeah, okay.” He releases me and grabs his armor before making his way to the lift. “I gotta head out to Rock Gulch anyway. Pick something up.”  
        “Rock Gulch? That’s Disciple territory.”  
        Gage turns to me on the lift and smirks. “Boy, you really are a sharp one, ain’t ya?”  
        “You can’t go there…” his eyes narrow. “By yourself. It’s…a long walk.”  
        “I’ve done it a thousand times. What’s the difference now?”  
        He’s fucking killing me. I’m almost tempted just to tell him the truth to get him to do what I want, but I just can’t bear seeing that disappointment and betrayal in his eyes if he knows the Disciples might want him dead. “Just take…two of the Operators with you. Or…the Pack, I don’t really care. Just bring two of them.” He gives me a strange look and opens his mouth to speak, but I know it’ll be something along the lines of not needing an escort. “That’s, uh…that’s an order,” I demand, and Gage stares at me for a moment before letting out a chuckle.  
        “Okay. Why don’t I walk you over to see Mason and grab a few Pack members to come with me while I’m there.”  
        “Yes. Good. Good stuff,” I say while checking to make sure I have everything before joining Gage on the lift.  
        He presses the button and starts dawning his armor as the lift carries us down to ground level, and I just can’t help but stare at him and his beautifully sculpted figure. I have to say, I might not agree with the way raiders choose to live, but it certainly does wonders for the body. “I had a really great time last night,” I say while Gage buckles the belt to secure his armor.  
        He glances at me. “Oh yeah? Well maybe if you’re nice we can have a repeat of that later on tonight.”  
        “Ohoho.” I’m delighted at the prospect. But when we reach ground level, I put on my game face. It’s time to be the serious Overboss, not the swooning lover of the man standing next to me. Because PDA, I’m not a fan of no matter how much a like a guy. And I get the sneaking suspicion that suits Gage just fine.  
        The two of us walk through Nuka-Town, and I’m pleased to see that the Disciples seem to have decided to just go about their business. Well, not pleased. Because they keep giving me dirty looks. But at least it’s not as suspicious as not having them anywhere in sight. Though I’ll admit, the fear of an assassination attempt runs rampant in my mind until we reach Operator territory, and I feel like I can breathe again.  
        We make it to the nest and are greeted with the upmost pleasure and generosity, which surprises me considering Safari Adventure is still in its probation period.  
        As we approach Mason on his throne, a smile spreads across his face. “I’m starting to get the feeling that you might actually have a thing for me, boss,” Mason says, and I chuckle.  
        “In your dreams.”  
        “Look, I gotta hand it to ya. I wasn’t sure you bein’ Overboss was really gonna work out so well. But it looks like we did the right thing, giving you a chance to prove yourself and all. And look now. Not even here for a month and all the parks have been reclaimed.”  
        I force a polite smile. “Couldn’t have done it without all you fine people backing me up. I appreciate all you’ve done, Mason.”  
        “Yeah, sure. But don’t go thinkin’ we’re friends now. We ain’t. I’d still happily kill you if enough caps were involved.”  
        I frown. “We’re friends.”  
        “No, we ain’t.”  
        “Best friends.”  
        “No.”  
        “Best friends forever.”  
        Mason hides a smirk spreading across his face and then looks to Gage. “She always like this?”  
        “I think you bring it out of her.”  
        I step closer to Mason, now becoming very serious and focused on the task at hand. “Look, all jokes aside, I need your help again.”  
        “What do I look like? Porter Gage?”  
        “Very funny,” Gage gripes.  
        “Don’t be like that, Mason,” I warn. “There’s still a lot of things that need to be done around this park to whip it into shape. I could stop backing the Pack whenever I so choose.”  
He sneers. “All right, boss. What can I do for you?”  
        “First off…I need two of your men to escort Gage out to Dry Rock Gulch. He has some business to take care of, and I don’t much like the idea of my right hand man making that trip solo, you feel me?”  
        Mason nods. “Sure, I feel you.” He looks to Gage. “Want me to grab ‘ol Missy for ya, Gagey-boy?”  
        Gage scoffs. “That’s all right.”  
        “Mason?” I speak, pulling him back to me.  
        “Yeah, all right. Take whoever you want. But all I got on hand are pups.”  
        I look over my shoulder to two passing Pack members. “You two,” I call to them, and they stop dead in their tracks, looking rather perplexed by me.  
        “Uh…yeah?”  
        “Uh, yeah? That how you address your Overboss?” Gage snaps while smacking one of them upside the head. I hear Mason chuckle from behind me, and I can’t help but roll my eyes at the two men, no doubt using fear to get people to do what they want for them.  
        “Sorry, boss,” the young raider replies.  
        “Look, I need the two of you to escort Gage out to Dry Rock Gulch, all right?” They seem confused by the request but then nod. Still, they don’t seem to grasp the severity of the situation, and I suddenly feel very uneasy about sending Gage into Disciple territory with only “pups,” as Mason refers to them.  
        I grab them both by the collars of their shirts and pull them away from Mason and Gage to give us a little time to chat. “Do not let anything happen to him, do you understand me?” I say while pointing my finger in their faces, but still, they only nod, no doubt too nervous about sounding disrespectful again. “Good.” I release them and dust off their shirt collars to get them back into the correct position. “You’ll be rewarded very handsomely if he returns unscathed. But if he comes back with so much as a scratch on him, you’ll be answering to me. You got it?”  
        They nod, anxious about their assignment. “Yeah, boss.”  
        “Good boys. Off you go.” Okay, I have to admit. It’s a little fun being mean and pushy with the lower ranking raiders. Hell, it’d be fun with the higher ranking ones too if they would tolerate such a thing.  
        “Guess I’ll be headin’ out then,” Gage says from behind me, and I turn to him.  
        “Okay. Just…please be careful. And go easy on those two. They won’t be much use in a fight if they want you dead.”  
        “What makes you think there will be a fight?”  
        I shake my head. “It’s the wasteland, Gage. Anything can happen.”  
        He nods. “Yeah. Guess you’re right. And you be careful too. Don’t go doin’ anything that’s gonna piss Nisha off any more than she probably already is.”  
        “How about we all decide to be careful and call it a day?” Mason says from his throne, and I can’t help but chuckle. But when I turn back to Gage, I’m immediately put off by the feeling of his lips on mine and his hand on my face.  
        He kisses me intently, and my eyes become wide. I hardly even return the gesture because it’s really very awkward, doing this in front of Mason. But when Gage pulls away from me, he keeps his hand on my face, though his eyes dart behind me. I turn to look over my shoulder only to find the young raider girl who stared at me with disgust only days before. The one Gage said he didn’t know. And she’s staring at us. Oh man, is she staring at the two of us.  
        I turn back to Gage, and his gaze goes from her to me in a matter of seconds. But there’s something dark inside of him. Something I’ve never seen in him before. A sick kind of pleasure that kind of turns me away from him. “I’ll see you later,” he says and then releases me to meet up with his escorts.  
        _What the fuck was that?_  
        “What the fuck was that?” Mason asks, and I’m not even sure how to respond.  
        “I, uh…I’m not sure.” But I didn’t like it one bit. The young raider girl aside, I figured I wouldn’t have had to tell Gage about PDA. Like, I figured that would just be in his nature, to not do something like that. Unless he was trying to make someone jealous. If that’s the case, I really don’t appreciate being used for that purpose. And at the cost of making me—the Overboss—look weak.  
        It seems so out of character for him.  
        “Whatever,” Mason says with a disgusted look on his face. “I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. Gage has had his sights set on you from the moment you set foot in the Gauntlet.”  
        It’s flattering, and I’m not sure I do so well at hiding the pleasure from my face. “Hmmm. Okay, well…the biggest reason I came here. I need you to accompany me to pay Nisha a little visit.”  
        Mason stares at me for a moment and then lets out a booming laugh. Though when he realizes that I might not be kidding, his face drops. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

        Mason and I walk through Nuka-Town side by side, much to his dismay. “Can’t believe I’m fucking doing this shit.”  
        “Hey, you said it yourself. All you got are pups on hand. And this is a big job, intended for a big man.”  
        “Yeah, well I don’t see Mags or Billy Black being pulled from their posts to assist in any way.”  
        “They’re not intimidating enough. Not like you,” I swoon in a poor attempt to flatter him and maybe get him to shut up. And yes, I’ll admit that this sort of work is beneath a gang leader.  Intended for maybe a veteran of one of the gangs. But Mason’s presence while talking with Nisha not only shows that I have the support of the gangs, he’s also big and strong enough to  intimidate if necessary.  
        Mags and William, bright and eloquent, but I get the feeling that Nisha most likely responds to brute force over anything else. Also, it’s no secret that the Operators have my back. They’ve supported me since the beginning. The Pack is a recent development though, and with Mason by my side, I’m certain that it’ll keep Nisha in her place. Mostly because the Disciples against one gang is a fair fight. But against two of them?  
        It’s something I know she won’t be willing to take on. No good leader would.  
        We approach the doors to the mountain, and my eyes wander to the guard, whose grip tightens on her gun as I get closer. “Boss,” she spits with so much hatred and disdain in her tone. “I don’t believe Nisha’s expecting you.”  
        “Open the damn door before I paint the pavement with whatever’s bangin’ around in that skull of yours,” Mason says, and I’m already starting to regret bringing him.  
        But the guard obeys, even though she doesn’t seem happy about it.  
        “Okay, that? You can’t do. We’re in Nisha’s territory now, so…play nice until I tell you otherwise,” I mutter while entering the mountain.  
        “But wouldn’t you know, it worked,” Mason says coolly while walking in behind me, and we enter the world of darkness and Disciples. And when the door closes behind us, I feel Mason fall back a bit, no doubt never having been inside Nisha’s domain. Not that I’m used to the state of things either. “Oh, fuck…what died in here?”  
        “Lots of things, I’m assuming,” I say as we pass a set of cages with dead bodies inside. Fresh bodies and decapitated heads on spikes.  
        “And you thought the nest smelled bad.”  
        “Okay, you’ve gone nose-blind to the smell of the nest.” I glance around the room. Fresh blood mixed with the smell of decay inside of a decrepit mountain forms a grimace on my face. “But you’re right, this…this is much worse.”  
        Mason scoffs as we walk further into the mountain. “And the Disciples think we’re a bunch of animals.” He has a point. Though it makes sense to refer to the Pack as animalistic, the  Disciples seem much more befitting of that title based on the way they live. Literally, like a pack of wild beasts. No sense of order or moral code.  
        At least the Pack has some sort of code of ethics. “What is she doing here?” Dixie says as I approach.  
        “Looks like someone’s got a death wish,” Savoy chimes in, and Mason and I stop in front of them.  
        “I’m just here to speak with Nisha.”  
        “Well, well, well…I wasn’t expecting to see you here, Overboss.” I look up to one of the rafters and find Nisha leaning on the railing, staring down at me and Mason. “And it looks like you’ve brought…a friend of yours.”  
        I glance to Mason. Certainly a much more pleasant reaction than if I had Gage at my side, I’m sure. “I’d like a few minutes of your time to talk, if that’s all right, Nisha.”  
        “Doesn’t seem I really have a choice in the matter. But whatever. Come on up if you’d like to have a chat.”  
        I’m skeptical about joining her on the rafters, but I nudge Mason and beckon him to follow me up the walkway until we’re face to face with Nisha. And just like the first time we met, she’s wearing that mask that all but covers her face, and I find it even more unnerving than before. Because I have no way of knowing what she’s really thinking.  
        “You know, when I saw the Pack’s flag flying over Safari Adventure, I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. Sure, it’s fitting, sticking a bunch of animals in a zoo…”  
        “Hey, I can say it,” Mason interjects.  
        “I’ll be honest with you, boss. The realization that the Disciples only had one territory while our…competitors each have two, it made me a little crazy at first. I was tempted to send Savoy up to your room and slit your throat while you slept. Put that pretty little head of yours on display for all of Nuka-World to see.”  
        “That’s…lovely, Nisha,” I groan.  
        “But I’ve come to the realization that while I still very much loathe you for what you did, I’m sure I didn’t exactly give you the best impression of us once you arrived here in Nuka-World, what with the Gauntlet you suffered through and our first conversation being under less than desirable circumstances.”  
        I’m skeptical of her, because it seems like she’s admitting she got what she deserved. And Nisha doesn’t seem the type to admit to being wrong. Eating crow? It’s not befitting of her, and I’m certain it tastes bitter as fucking vinegar, her saying these things to me. “Well, I’m glad you’re able to recognize the cause to our…strained relationship.”  
        “Without a doubt. But it still doesn’t change the fact that the Disciples are a gang worth backing, and I only hope you realize that before it’s too late. Like when it’s time to make moves in the Commonwealth.”  
        I’m confused. “The Commonwealth?” I laugh. “Yeah, that’s never going to happen.”  
        “Another broken promise, though I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s a shame, really. And here I thought we could mend our broken relationship.”  
        Everything I planned to say. Everything I planned to offer Nisha, it all leaves my mind in this moment. I don’t want to make amends with her. If anything, I want the Disciples wiped out, though it seems like it’s wishful thinking.  
        While leaving the mountain, I can’t stop thinking about what Nisha said about the Commonwealth. About a broken promise. But from who? Surely not Gage. I don’t put it past him that he would move into the Commonwealth if I told him to, but he would never do it without my say so. And he knows I’d never agree to such a thing.  
        “Well that was uneventful,” Mason groans while making our way back through Nuka-Town, and his aversion to the topic at hand I somewhat comforting. Because if the plan was to move into the Commonwealth all along, I’m sure I’d be getting an ear-full about my decision not to from him. But he never mentions the subject.  
        After Mason returns to the nest, I find myself wandering the streets of Nuka-Town, unsure if I really want to see Gage at the moment. Because I didn’t make peace with Nisha. If anything, I only exacerbated the situation. And possibly put the man I love in even more danger than before.  
I don’t return to my quarters until the sun begins to set, and even then I’m reluctant to do so. But I can only imagine what Gage must be thinking. And just as I suspected, when the lift stops at the top level, Gage is waiting for me. And he looks pissed.  
        “Where you been?” he snaps, but I focus my attention inward at the dwelling space in front of me. It’s clean. Very clean, not at all the state in which I left it this morning. “Scarlett,” Gage says firmly, grabbing my attention once more.  
        “I, uh…I’ve just been out.”  
        “You’ve been out. You couldn’t come back here and check-in with me?”  
        I can’t hide the annoyance on my face while stepping off the lift to move further away from him. “You’re not my keeper, Gage. I’m in charge here, remember?”  
        He grabs my arm. “Hey now, I know I’m not your keeper. But Christ, Scarlett, last I heard you were goin’ to see Nisha. And that was hours ago.”  
        “I did…see Nisha.”  
        “I thought somethin’ bad happened to ya. Almost sent in a gang of raiders to find ya.”  
        “I’m…sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”  
        “No, you weren’t,” he says pointedly. I open my mouth to speak, but the sound of something approaching me distracts my attention.  
        “Well there’s my favorite deputy. Hope you’re having a good day at…Dry Rock Gulch,” the robotic sheriff from Rock Gulch says while waddling toward me, and I’m at a loss. I look to Gage.  
        “What’s…all this?”  
        Gage glances to the protectron and then back to me. “Yeah, uh…the Disciples were usin’ ‘em as target practice. Figured I’d go grab one for ya before it became just a pile of scrap metal.”  
        “And…you cleaned.”  
        “Well, not me. I had some of the Operators come in and do it for ya. Saw that you tried to make a dent in the mess earlier. Figured I’d have them finish up for ya.”  
        I’m moved, but also skeptical of him. Ever since what Nisha told me, at least. “Why?” I ask, and Gage scoffs.  
        But he looks offended. “What? I can’t do somethin’ nice for ya?”  
        He makes me feel guilty, but what Nisha’s words linger in my mind. And as thankful as I should be for his gifts, the only think I can think about is a “broken promise” and the repercussions of my reluctance to oblige. “You can, and…thank you. I’m just…”  
        “Scarlett, did I miss something here? You pissed at me for some reason?”  
        I don’t know what to say. “No, I’m just…thinking.”  
        “About what?”  
        I look at him. Study him a bit, try to find any shred of deceit behind his eyes. A bit of that darkness I saw earlier, but all I can see is a curiosity and vulnerability. “What was that about     earlier?”  
        “What was what about?”  
        “You, making a display like that at the nest. Kissing me in front of everyone. We shouldn’t do things like that, Gage. And I’m surprised I even have to have this conversation with you.”  
        “Shit…all right. Anything else?”  
        “You have nothing to say on the matter?”  
        “What am I supposed to say? Yeah, okay, I shouldn’t have done that. But you been actin’ crazy all morning. Got me thinkin’ somethin’ bad’s gonna happen to you. Somethin’ I know nothing about.”  
        I shake my head. “It can’t happen again.”  
        He nods, but his eye is pointed. “Okay, fine. But give me a break here, will ya? I ain’t…I ain’t ever done nothin’ like this before. Not really sure how it’s supposed to work. I mean, I assume the two of us have progressed past just bein’ partners, am I right? Or did I seriously misjudge this whole situation?”  
        I shake my head. “No, you didn’t.”  
        “Fine. Now I’d prefer if we didn’t talk about this anymore. Unless you have somethin’ else you feel you need to say.” I consider, but words fail me. “How’d it go with Nisha?”  
        I sigh, defeated. “Not good,” I say weakly.  
        “Well that’s just fuckin’ great. What happened?”  
        I fold my arms across my chest. Perhaps a subconscious way to protect my heart, because based on his reaction, I’ll know exactly whether Nisha was lying or telling the truth about him. Something I’m not even sure I want to know. “She’s pissed that we won’t be moving into the Commonwealth.”  
        But his expression remains stoic. “The Commonwealth, huh? Yeah, I figured she’d still be holdin’ out hope for that.”  
        “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I snap, but I have to look away from him. I’m ready to beat his handsome face in, but I compose myself despite my elevated heart rate and face that feels like it’s about to explode.  
        “Now don’t go gettin’ yourself all riled up. It was all part of Colter’s plan—somethin’ he promised the gangs early on to get ‘em on board with Nuka-World.”  
        “Colter didn’t have plans. You had them for him.”  
        “That’s not entirely true. Sure, I’ll admit that the Commonwealth has a bunch of shitty little settlements just waitin’ to be put to better use. But when have you ever heard me say that it’s next on the list? Or even in my plans for the future?”  
        I think for a moment, but he has never mentioned the Commonwealth. Ever. And I’m not sure if it’s because of our conversation about the Minutemen we had a while back or because it was never forefront in his mind, but more or less, Colter’s. “So…this broken promise Nisha mentioned…it wasn’t a promise from you? Because my first meeting with Nisha, she said you made a lot of promises and never delivered.”  
        “Did she now?” he asks, sharpness in his tone. “And you believe her over me?”  
        “I’m just trying to figure out what she meant. I’m hoping you haven’t set your sights on the Commonwealth, Gage. Because you know what will happen.”  
        He’s quiet for a moment, and the silence is a killer. “Sure, I know what will happen. But that promise wasn’t mine to make. Now, I’m not tryin’ to play innocent in all this. If Colter had said he wanted to move in on the Commonwealth, I woulda been on board—after clearing the parks. But it never got that far. But…I’m not an idiot, boss. Hell, I’m not a genius either. But it don’t take a genius to see that movin’ in to the Commonwealth is just somethin’ you’re not on board with. And I’m okay with that, despite what you may think. Mostly because you did everything you said you’d do for us. And what more can I ask for?”  
        “And what about when I leave here? You gonna be in the next boss’ ear, telling him it’s time to move over the mountains.”  
        “You think I’d do that to you?”  
        I’m at a loss. Because I just don’t know anymore. Gage is a raider, and it’s never been more at the forefront of my mind than this moment. “I don’t know.”  
        But my response seems to pain him, and he inhales heavily through his nose, as if preparing to verbally lash out at me. “Then what the hell are we even doin’ here?”  
        I hesitate to speak, but before words can leave my lips, Gage turns away from me and exits my quarters, slamming the door shut behind him as he does. And even though I feel the aching desire to follow him, apologize for being so suspicious of him and his end goal, my mind just won’t allow me to chase after him.  
        I toss and turn all night, all the while fighting the urge to just go to him. Crawl into his bed and attempt to make things right between us. But I’m conflicted. He has every right to be mad, no question. And I’m not sure why I feel the need to believe Nisha over Gage. Even though she didn’t outright say Gage was the one to promise her the Commonwealth, the idea of him being so manipulative and conniving keeps me from going to his bedside.  
        But by the time morning comes, I figure the two of us need to have a chat. Because I can’t spend the next, however long it will take me to find a replacement, being cross with Gage. I care about him too much, and I get the feeling that even seeing him, knowing he’s no longer mine, will break my heart. Having to work closely together with him just won’t work unless we talk things out. Also the fact remains that if I leave Nuka-World on bad terms with Gage, I can’t help but feel he’d be more inclined to do something I really don’t want him to.  
        I enter his quarters. “Gage?” But he’s nowhere in sight. I search the back rooms for him, every corner, but I can’t find him.  
        I take the elevator down to ground level, assuming I’ll find him lingering out front like he sometimes does for whatever reason, but he isn’t there either. The only thing I see that grabs my attention are a few members of the Pack running past me, guns hot and heading straight for the parks. It’s suspicious, and I’m tempted to follow.  
        “Hey, boss!” I look to my left and see Mason, Mags, and William fast approaching. And the look on their faces implies that their heated about something. Something I must know nothing about.  
        “Mason, what’s…” I begin while motioning to the raiders running past us.  
        “That bitch, Nisha. She’s fuckin’ turned on us.”  
        I’m stunned, and even though I don’t know the details, I can’t help but feel that this is all going to end very, very badly. 


	17. The Glory Of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett moves in to take down the Disciples.*

        Mason, Mags, William, and I gather in the Overboss’ quarters in order to fill me in on what’s happening and prepare for, what looks like, an unavoidable battle agains the Disciples. Because by the way they’re talking, it seems Nisha is beyond the point of being reasoned with, and I’m very much starting to regret our conversation the previous day.  
        “Nisha and her crew went and stormed the power plant. But the parks are swarming with Disciples, and they’re trying to reclaim what they feel is rightfully theirs,” Mags says, and she seems displeased. I can’t help but feel it’s with me. “We have our people trying to hold them off, but it looks like Nisha’s dug in pretty well up there.”  
        “God dammit,” I groan.  
        “I knew that nutjob would turn on us sooner or later,” Williams says, and I’m relieved to know that at least he doesn’t blame me. “So, are we storming the place or what?”  
        I hesitate to answer. “If that bitch thinks she’s going to get away with this, she’s dead wrong. I’ll tuck her in for a dirt nap myself,” Mags says, trying to pull me back to the moment, I assume, due to my lack of response. Because honestly, I don’t want a battle. I don’t like putting my people in harm’s way unless absolutely necessary, and although it seems it is necessary, I can’t help but try and think of a better way. And then I’m left wondering where Gage is. What he’d have me do.  
        “She can’t get away with this, boss. And we all want in on the action!” William says rather passionately.  
        “Hey, now. I already lost men trying to stop her. I won’t be satisfied until it’s my hands wrapped around her scrawny little neck—eyes popping out of her stupid little mask,” Mason says through gritted teeth.  
        But their yammering is making it hard to think. “Both of you, shut up,” Mags says, as if she can read my mind. “Look, boss…this is your play. We’ll follow you anywhere, but you have to swear to us that Nisha will be punished for her actions.”  
        But I can’t concentrate. This feels wrong, all of it. And a terrible, terrible feeling overcomes me like a swarm of storm clouds moving in on any sort of resolution I can possibly find. “Is it really so hard for you to decide? Cuz while we’re all standing around here, waiting for you to give the order, more of our men are dying,” Mason snaps.  
        “Mason, shut up!” I shout. “This is hard enough without you running your god damn mouth every few seconds, telling me what I should do.”  
        “Watch it there, boss. Because if I remember correctly, this is all your doing.”  
        “All to give you and the Operators more land. But rest assured, I can still put you down and give your territory to Mags and William whenever I so choose.” I hear William chuckle. “Where the fuck is Gage?!”  
        “You keep threatening me like that, and I’ll cut you up into little pieces and feed you to my dogs,” Mason says.  
        “You want a piece of me, Mason? Go ahead. Take a bite!” I shout while taking a step toward him, but I’m unraveling here. Mason’s words resonate with me, and I agree one-hundred percent that this is all my fault. For antagonizing Nisha. And now Gage is nowhere in sight because I antagonized him last night as well.  
        Mags clears her throat. “Boss? This isn’t going to wait. We need to make moves.”  
        I sigh, defeated. Because even though it seems like they’re giving me a choice, they aren’t. And there’s only one thing that can be done. “Fine,” I concede, though I hate the idea of storming the power plant without Gage by my side. “I guess there’s no point in negotiating with terrorists. Let’s move out.”  
        The entire way to the power plant, I’m keeping my eyes peeled for Gage. Maybe he’s already engaged in battle and hasn’t had the opportunity to come find me. And as we walk—well, briskly walk—I hear gun shots in the distance. People fighting at the entrances of the parks we pass, and I want nothing more than to assist my people.  
        But the three gang bosses keep me on track, as if not bothered at all by the sight of their people fighting. Or maybe they just know them better and trust they know what they’re doing. But at the sight of a Disciple taking down an Operator and pointing her gun at his face, I can’t help but interfere.  
        I raise my rifle and fire a few rounds into the Disciple’s head, assuring she’s really dead before running to the Operator and assisting him to his feet. “Thanks, boss.”  
        “I need you to do me a favor. Head back to Nuka-Town and find Porter Gage. Let him know we’re storming the power plant and to get his ass out here, now.”  
        “You got it,” he says while raising his rifle and rushing past us back in the direction of Nuka-Town. Because honestly, I don’t like my odds right now. Sure, Mason, Mags, and William are “gang bosses” but I’ve never seen how they fight. Mags and William, they look as though they’ve never had to take a beating in their life, and I can’t help but feel Mason might get a bit reckless.  
        I need someone I can trust by my side, even if he is pissed at me.  
        But by the time we make it to the power plant, there’s no time to wait for Gage. We’re immediately caught in the throes of battle as Disciples from the rooftop begin firing at us. “Take cover!” I yell while ducking behind the parking structure as bullets whizz past me, breaking off bits of concrete as they hit the structure.  
        I wait a few moments before peeking my head around the corner and attempting to find my target through my rifle’s scope. I see the figures moving along the rooftop, but before I can really focus on one of them, my eyes become blurry and strained.  
        “Ah, fuck…” I cruse while running my fingers over my eyes. I try to focus again, but everything through my scope is a blur. And then I feel the violent tug on my jacket collar, pulling me back into cover before more bullets come whizzing past me.  
        I see William ducked by my side, though he seems unimpressed that he had to pull me from harm’s way. I can’t fucking think straight right now, and he notices. “We need to get inside, boss,” William says.  
        “Uh…” I peek around the corner again, just to assure I know the location of the entrance. “Okay…we…we run for it. Don’t stop, and just…keep moving so they can’t lock on to us, all right.”  
        “Ready when you are.”  
        “All right. Now…now, go now…” William crosses me and starts running toward the entrance with his gun held up, ready to take out any opponent in his way, and I follow behind him. But the bullets whizz past us, and we hardly make it to the door before having to take cover against the side of the building.  
        My eyes wander outward to Mason attempting to shoot down the Disciples while Mags ducks behind a car. “Mags!” William yells and motions her to join us against the wall. “We can make it to the door from here.”  
        Mags comes to my side and presses herself against the wall. “Just keep in the shadow,” I say while pointing down to the edge of the shadow from the building. “They can’t reach us from where they’re standing.”  
        The three of us start moving along the wall to the entrance while Mason keeps himself entertained by shooting the Disciples on the rooftop, ducking for cover every now and then behind the car where he’s positioned himself.  
        We almost make it to the corner of the building, but an entertained howl from Mason grabs my attention, and before I can even register what he’s so pleased about, a Disciple from the rooftop comes crashing down before us, startling me.  
        “Oh my…”  
        William chuckles. “You see how his head exploded?”  
        Mags groans. “Ugh, William…”  
        Though Mason seems utterly pleased with himself, despite the fact that Mags and I were almost pulverized by a dead body.  
        The four of us make it inside the power plant unscathed only to be greeted by a few ferals. But against four, they’re relatively easy to put down, and I use my pistol to try and conserve my rifle ammo. But further into the power plant, Disciples lurk around every corner.  
        “Grenade!” Mason yells from one of the small operating rooms inside, and my only reaction is to jump back, sending myself tumbling down a small set of stairs leading to the room. The force of impact causes me to drop my pistol to the ground below, and I hardly have a moment to compose myself before the explosion sends debris flying at me, and the sound alone is enough to deafen me for a few moments.  
        I hear ringing in my ears, and my vision goes blurry for a moment. Mags and William approach from the walkway beneath, but I have my hand to them. “Back, go back…” they retreat, and I push myself up and climb the steps leading to the small room again, now with my rifle in hand. Because by the way it sounded, Mason might not have made it out.  
        But I find him in a tussle with a Disciple, and before I can raise my gun to assist, Mason smashes the guy in his face with the butt of his gun and then shoots him dead. And then, he opens fire on me, sending me into cover behind one of the counters.  
        I’m in disbelief of what just happened, and desperately wishing I wouldn’t have sent Mags and William back. But I hear Mason laugh. “Sorry, boss,” he says as I peer my head around the corner. Mason shrugs. “Thought you were one of them.” But he has something dark behind his eyes and an evil, deceitful grin on his face. I can’t help but feel that Mason might be trying to kill me.  
        “All clear?” William yells, but I keep my eyes on Mason, panting, terrified that he might try and pull something like that again.  
        “All…all clear,” I call to Mags and William, but Mason keeps his eyes on me while backing out of the room to advance further into the power plant.  
        But clearing a path to Nisha proves to be difficult. With every advance we make, we’re sent back as we’re swarmed with even more Disciples, all ready and willing to lay their life on the line for their leader. And with me now unable to trust one of my own, I find myself outnumbered most of the time—relying on Mags or William to assist while attempting to keep my distance from Mason.  
        But Mason leads the way through the plant, and I know I can’t avoid being caught in a crossfire with him eventually. I desperately wish Gage were by my side. Fighting with a team of raiders seems wrong without him near me, smirking at me playfully in the midst of battle. Yelling out things like “That was fun, huh?” after taking down an opponent.  
        We nearly make it to the top of the building but find ourselves having to duck for cover behind a set of pillars to avoid being shot by a few Disciples that dug themselves into an operating room down a ramp to our left.  
        Though Mags and William retreat when the Disciples open fire, and I’m tempted to run for cover closer to them to separate myself for Mason. But before I can move, more bullets flying at me makes me retreat behind my pillar once more.  
        I squat down with my rifle in hand and look across the way at Mason, though he seems completely focused on the Disciples below. Even though now would be the best time to try and kill me, if that’s what he wanted. So I focus my attention on the Disciples below, peering out from cover to fire as best I can at them.  
        They’re not too far to cause my vision problems, but the room in which they’ve buried themselves into presents a lot of opportunities to duck for cover, and we find ourselves waiting for them to pop up more than actually shooting. But it seems they’re not as trained in the art of combat as me and my counterparts. I can wait all day for a target. The sort of patience I learned while traveling in Macready’s company.  
        He’s a sharpshooter by the very definition of the word, and my hard and loud tendencies dwindled while being with him, having picked up much more valuable techniques. And even though it takes a while to put those Disciples down, it still leaves me feeling victorious when I explode the head of one of them, and the room below falls silent and still.  
        I lower my gun. “You think that’s all of them?”  
        “Looks like it,” Mason says. But then he points his gun at me with the quickness, and my heart leaps into my throat.  
        “Mason!” But he fires, sending me back and onto my butt.  
        I don’t feel any pain though. And falling back was my own doing, not from the force of a gunshot. I look over my shoulder to see a dead feral on the ground behind me, and I’m stunned by the sight. “Your situational awareness sucks, boss,” Mason says while standing and walking past me.  
        Jesus fucking Christ. Perhaps I’m letting my paranoia get the better of me. But it’s in this moment that I realize something very obvious—something I can longer ignore or pretend I don’t recognize. I don’t trust these raiders. Not for one god damn second. And even with Gage, I’m skeptical. I don’t believe Gage will try and do anything to kill me, but taking him at his word is a difficult thing.  
        So I wonder, what am I even still doing here? Willingly going into battle with people I don’t expect to have my back? Mags and William, for example. I don’t suspect they want me dead, necessarily. Not like Mason might. But I also don’t think they’d put themselves on the line to save me.  
        Not like Macready would. Or Hancock, or even Preston.  
        These people aren’t worth dying for. And now would be the perfect time for me to make my escape, while all the raiders are consumed with threats of battle. But still, I find myself following Mason to the ladder that takes us up to the rooftop. And I’m not sure why I do that.  
        We make it to the rooftop, but it is an all-out war. The Disciples swarm us, making it difficult to really move anywhere other than the small room from which we exited. And with Mason at the corner of the building, taking cover whenever necessary, I realize that I have to find a new place to secure myself.  
        Mags and William, they retreat back into the room and fight from the windows, but the number of Disciples versus us is disconcerting. And even after taking one down, I hardly revel in the victory because more keep coming. Much like the gatorclaws at Safari Adventure.  
        I move around the back of the building, putting down Disciples in my way. One comes at me with a knife—as crazy as it may seem—but three shots to the chest knocks her on her ass. I duck down beneath a set of pips and scan the area, finding Nisha on the walkway just ahead and above me, her efforts focused on Mason.  
        “You little bitch!” A thick, southern accent says from behind me, and when I turn, I see Dixie running at me with a knife. A truly astounding thing, the Disciples trying to use a knife on someone with a rifle, though I can only assume they can’t deny themselves of such an intimate kill, and Dixie manages to get the jump on me, being too close to me at the time I focus on her.  
        I swing my rifle and smash her in the face with the butt of my gun, but she’s resilient, swiping her knife at me too quick for me to aim at her. I jump back to avoid attack, but she swipes again until my back is against the pipes. She launches at me, but I duck down and smash her in the stomach with the butt of my gun, causing her to hunch over.  
        I bring my rifle up and smash her in the face, knocking her back into the side of the building before raising my gun and firing a shot right into her face. Dixie slides to the ground, dead as fucking dirt, and I reload and focus my attention back on Nisha.  
        But the Disciples seem ready to die for their leader, and getting to her proves to be difficult until I find the courage in myself to push forward and move in on the attacking Disciples. With Mags and William watching my back, I manage to move forward, taking down Disciples in my way or relying on my gang leaders to finish them off before I get the chance. As if they see the path  I’m moving, and take it upon themselves to help lighten the load.  
        As I turn the corner to ascend the walkway, one of the Disciples at the top turns to me and fires, and I narrowly dodge the attack by simply stepping out of the way before unloading into him, allowing me to move further upward and closer to Nisha.  
        But before I can make it to the top, a stinging sensation and a forceful jolt into my left bicep knocks me back, sending me tumbling back down the walkway. I hit the ground hard, groaning in pain while assessing my injury. Bullet hole to the arm, and Nisha’s sinister laugh is a clear indication of who my attacker is.  
        I pick my head up and look up the walkway toward where she stands. With her pistol in hand, she points it to me, and I can only assume she’s going in for the kill. But the sound of a gunshot echoes throughout the nearly cleared rooftop, and Nisha’s pistol goes flying out of her hand. She seems stunned, and so am I.  
        I look to the building that’s now behind me, and a pleased expression on Mason’s face while he goes to reload gives me a small bit of satisfaction. But I have to move in, now while she’s still without a weapon.  
        I push myself up and run up the walkway until I’m on level ground, and Nisha stands in front of me. I raise my rifle and move in on her, and she turns to face me. But when I pull the trigger, nothing happens. “Shit,” I gasp while struggling to reload, and that sinister laughter from Nisha moves closer to me. I try to shoot her, having reloaded faster than ever before, but she grabs the barrel of my rifle and jerks me to the side, causing me to fire off at nothing in particular.  
        She pulls me forward by use of my gun and then smashes my back into the railing of the walkway, and from this position, I have no way of shooting her. I glance over my shoulder to see what the hell my people are doing, but more Disciples have made their way onto the roof, pulling their efforts away from helping me.  
        Nisha slams into me again, and I feel myself going over the side of the railing. But I take her down with me, and the two of us come crashing to the cement below the walkway. I’m a bit out of sorts from the fall when I notice my rifle laying only feet away from me. But Nisha attacks before I can get to it, and before I know it, she’s on top of me. She pulls the knife she gave me as “tribute” from my thigh and tries to bury it deep into my face.  
        I’m fighting her as hard as I can, straining from the effort, but the knife is inches away from my face. But a loud ping on the pipes next to us distracts her momentarily—a bullet clearly intended for one of us—and I use the opportunity to flip myself over and get the upper hand on her.  
        She tries to stab at me as I climb on top of her, but I grab her wrist and smash her hand into the ground repeatedly until she releases the knife. And then, I move for it. I almost grab the thing, but Nisha grabs my legs to pull me back. I start kicking at her, all the while trying to make my way to the knife, and finally, one of my kicks is hard enough to knock her back, kicking her mask from her face and sending blood into her mouth.  
        For the first time ever, I see Nisha’s face. And it’s just as terrifying a sight as I could have expected—eye painted black, the cornea—bloodshot. I try to grab the knife again, but she kicks it away and then attempts to stomp on me, but I grab her foot and knock her to the ground. Though this fight is wearing me out, and I need the end to come soon.  
        I push myself up, but the sound of gunshots startle me, grabbing my attention momentarily to the battle between the last few Disciples and my gang leaders. But now isn’t the time to be distracted. I run for the knife, bringing me much closer to the edge of the building than I’d prefer. But when my fingers grasp the wooden handle, and I turn to face Nisha. She’s on her feet now, staring at me with a sneer. As if she has something better up her sleeve than a knife.  
        She runs at me, and I’m not sure how to handle such an advance. But the force of her crashing into me sends us both backwards, and Nisha over the edge of the building. I guess she figured that she wanted to take me down with her, but she won’t give up so easily.  
        I feel her nails dig into my arm as she uses me to keep from falling to the ground below—a high fall, one that would kill anyone if gone over.  
        The left half of my body is over the edge of the building, and with the weight of Nisha, clinging to my arm, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we both fall to our death. I wince at the feeling of her nails digging into my arm—the weight of her feeling as though she might rip my arm from its socket.  
        I try to pull my arm away from her, but my other arm and leg are the only thing from keeping me from going over. Nisha looks to the ground below before focusing her black eyes back on me. “If I die, you’ll never find Gage,” she warns, and it feels as though my heart stops beating. She must see the fear in my eyes because she begins to laugh, her blood stained teeth being revealed by the curl of her lips.  
        But she strains while trying to pull herself up. “Tick tock, boss. Gage’s time is running out,” she says, though seeming much less amused with the current situation.  
        I want more than anything to let her fall to her death, but she has Gage. And if she dies, I’m certain he will as well. I start trying to pull her back up to the ledge, but I’m not strong enough to do much. Though the small amount I do pull her up seems to help her enough to start sinking her nails into my arm and use me as a human rope.  
        I scream at the feeling of her grabbing my hair and digging her nails into my back as she gets higher up me to pull herself back over the edge. And finally, I’m able to use both arms to secure my place on the ledge. But Nisha’s weight is a killer, and the way she uses me to pull herself too safety, it’s too much for my body to handle.  
        I feel my lower body sliding more over the edge. And just when it feels like Nisha might actually pull herself up, both my legs go swinging off the ledge, and Nisha gasps at the feeling of the only bit of stability she had disappearing from beneath her.  
        I feel her release me. And even though I no longer have the weight of her pulling me down, looking down the ground below to see she’s fallen to her death is of no comfort to me. I wince at the realization of what’s just happened and can’t contain a cry, knowing that she might have been the only person to know where Gage is.  
        But my hands on the ledge are slipping, and all my strength abandons me in this moment. I’m panting, trying to listen for any sign that my people are victorious on the rooftop. But I hear nothing. “Mags!” I yell, desperation in my voice. “William!”  
        I can’t hold on much longer. Even when trying to use my legs against the building help climb up, the bullet wound in my arm makes me shake. And my fingers start slipping. But I hear someone approaching the ledge. And when I see Mason look over the side, I quiver with fear.  
        “You hangin’ in there, boss?” he smirks.  
        “Mason…” I whine, but I don’t trust he’ll do anything. Because the way he looks down at me, he seems hateful. And all too pleased to see me in this situation.  
        Mason leans over and grabs my wrist. “No…” I gasp, because I’m certain he’ll just let me go. Let me fall to my death, just like with Nisha. And with me AND Gage out of the way, there’s nothing stopping him from taking over Nuka-World.  
        “I ain’t gonna let you fall.”  
        I consider, but he’s really my only option. Because my fingers keep slipping. He tightens his grip on my wrist, and I use my other hand to grab onto his forearm before he lifts me back over the edge. As if all too easy for him to do.  
        With my feet planted firmly back on level ground, I feel a bit relieved. But Nisha’s warning about Gage, it sends a cold chill down my spine, and I find myself looking over the edge at her battered body below, wishing there was something I could have done differently.  
        “She’s got Gage,” I mutter.  
       “What’s that?” Mason asks.  
        I glance to him, but Mags and William appearing out of the small building to my left grabs my attention. “Mags!” I yell while running toward them. “Get the power to Nuka-World going. William, Mason, round up all your available guys. We need to do a search and rescue. That bitch took Gage.”  
        “Ah, shit,” William curses.  
        “The Disciples don’t leave people alive, boss,” Mason says, but I just can’t resign myself to defeat yet. Not without even trying to find him.  
        “We have to try, Mason,” I say while leading the way back into the power plant. “Get your people to search the mountain, Rock Gulch, the Gauntlet…anywhere the Disciples might have taken a prisoner. We need to look at the transit station and any buildings surrounding Nuka-World, fast!”  
        The search goes on late into the night, and I join the Operator’s efforts to clear the mountain in search of Gage, but he’s nowhere to be found. Only puddles of blood—not unusual for Disciple territory—but now I can’t help but think they’re his.  
        I even become as desperate as to try and identify the bodies and severed heads on spikes throughout their territory, but the Disciples have hidden Gage well. And by the early morning, the park has been cleared of all Disciples. Dry Rock Gulch has been liberated once more with the promise to be awarded to which ever gang finds Gage first.  
        But it seems our efforts are futile.  
        I can’t return to the mountain top. Not knowing that Gage is somewhere out there, probably suffering at the hands of a few Disciples that managed to slip through our fingertips. So I find solace at the Parlor, and Mags and William have been gracious hosts, keeping my glass full of vodka while I mourn the loss of Gage.  
        “You know, boss, even with Gage gone, you won’t be alone in all this. The Operators have your back,” Mags says, but she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know the relationship I have with Gage.  
        “I know you do, Mags. But it’s Gage we’re talking about here. None of this would have been possible if it weren’t for him.”  
        “And he will be honored accordingly, rest assured.”  
        “We need to find him,” I say quietly while looking into my glass of vodka. “I can’t stand the thought of him being buried in a shallow grave somewhere the scum of the wasteland can get to him.” My hands are shaking on the glass, so I lift it to my lips and take a big swig.  
        “She coulda taken him anywhere, boss. It’ll be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”  
        I shake my head. “He’s nearby, William. She couldn’t have taken him too far and then been back for the attack. It just doesn’t make sense,” I mutter.  
        “Unless she had one of her dogs take him somewhere to ice him.”  
        “William,” Mags hushes him.  
        But the doors to the Parlor slam open, and Mags and William move to the entrance to hear what all the noise is, because by the sound of things, someone who really doesn’t want to be there is being dragged inside.  
        I look to the entrance where two Operators pull Savoy forward, and a bit of hope comes flying back to me as I stand from my seat. Though Savoy stands there, beaten and feral about being taken prisoner. The sort of man who I’m certain only wishes to be killed instead of being someone’s prisoner.  
        “Get your stinkin’ hands off me!” he yells.  
        “We found him trying to make a run for it at the transit station, boss. Figure you might want to talk to him before we put him out of his misery,” one of the Operators says, and I look to Mags.  
        She nods. “This way.”  
        Mags leads us to a small room in the back of the Parlor. A table with straps on the top along with a set of chairs exist inside. Some sort of torture/interrogation room. The Operators put Savoy in one of the chairs and strap his hands to the table before standing back. And when I feel all eyes in the room on me, I know that I’m to be running the show.  
        I remove my knife from my thigh and sit on the edge of the table near Savory, studying him for a bit as I do. Unsure of really how to go about torturing someone—someone I’m certain doesn’t mind being tortured the way well-adjusted people do.  
        “Where’s Gage, Savoy?” I ask with my knife in my hands.  
        Savoy scoffs. “And why would I tell you that?”  
        “Because if you don’t, I’m going to cut off all of your fingers one by one and shove them down your throat.” I stab my knife into the table between his arms, but it seemingly does nothing to him. I lean closer to him. “Where’s Gage?”  
        Savoy laughs. “Give it up… _boss_. Porter Gage is probably dead by now. Or if he isn’t, he will be very soon. And you won’t have time to get to him before that happens.”  
        I feel tears burn my eyes as a look of hate spreads across my face. I grab my knife and press the sharpened edge against the bend of his index finger and press down. A slow, painful process, one that only solicits a wince and a groan from him. “Tell me where he is.”  
        “Not a chance,” he says through a wince, though a smile breaks through, and I’m growing impatient. I press my knife further down onto his finger, with all the force I can until I feel it snap, and Savoy shouts out in pain.  
        I feel somewhat victorious that I managed to get that reaction out of him. But Savoy’s howl in pain turns into laughter…a sick, masochistic sort of laughter that sends a chill down my spine. And now, he won’t stop.  
        “You’ve got to give a little…take a little…and let your poor heart break a little…” he starts singing through his laughter, and it’s unnerving. I look to Mags and William, and they also seem to be disturbed by his reaction. “That’s the story of, that’s the glory of love…”  
        I’ll have nightmares for weeks if he doesn’t shut his mouth. And I feel as though I’m about to have a breakdown. Because by the way Savoy talks, if Gage is still alive, it’ll only be for a little while longer. I scream and pull the point of my knife to his neck, but my hands are shaking. I want to kill him, but I can’t yet. “Tell me where he is!?” I scream.  
        His eyes wander to me. “I’ll never tell,” he says in a sing-song way followed by that creepy laugh. And before I can pull my knife away, Savoy pulls his head back before flinging it toward my knife, sending the thing deep into his own throat.  
        I’m horrified at the sight of blood spurting out from his neck, his laughter now being drowned out by the sound of choking from his own blood. I pull the knife from his neck, but the damage has been done. “Son of a bitch!” I yell while throwing the knife to the ground to make my way out of the room.  
        “Torturing’s not really your forte, is it, boss?” Mags asks, but I choose to ignore her comment.  
        “We need to find him. Send your men out to where they found Savoy, and check every building nearby. He has to be around somewhere. We can’t let him die.”  
        Though judging by the Operators reactions, they’re not too keen to go on a rescue mission to save someone they already assume to be dead. And after talking with Savoy, I can’t help but feel he might actually be gone.


	18. Lone Wandering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett's Overboss duties won't wait, and she's sent to the Commonwealth in search of something the raiders of Nuka-World desperately need.*

        My anguish devours me. From the inside out until I feel nothing more than a hollow shell, only bothering to take another breath out of foolish hope. Hope that one day all this will end—the pain, the solitude, the loss. Because I don’t think I can swallow anymore heartache. But I know how this works. The pain will always come. There’s no stopping it. If ever one has the ability to love, pain will always follow on swift wings.  
        I thought after losing Nate, Shaun, Hancock…that there would be no more pain. That I couldn’t possibly make any more room in my heart for that kind of love. And now Gage is gone, and the loss of him rips my heart open, creating even more of an open wound for more pain, suffering. An open wound susceptible to infection—that’s what heartbreak really is. It opens you up to be poisoned, and it sickens you. Breaking you down until you’re nothing more than a shadow of a woman or man.  
        I returned to the Overboss’ quarters after searching all night for Gage without so much as a shred of evidence to where he might be. And when the sun started to rise, I was encouraged to rest while the search continued. Continues, I should say. Because the Operators and the Pack want that new territory.  
        I don’t suspect they think they’ll find Gage alive. So long as they find his body, or even some sort of clue, painting a clearer picture of what happened to him—I think they think that’ll suffice. And honestly, it will. Because I don’t think he is alive anymore. And I won’t admit that to anyone but myself. I can’t be certain of these things, but…when Savoy died, I felt like Gage died with him. Because he was the only lead we had.  
        I sit at the counter in my quarters with my face buried in my arms and a bottle of vodka next to me, though I lost the desire to drink hours ago. Sleep is out of the question despite how lethargic I feel for being awake nearly twenty-four hours. But how awful of me to find comfort and warmth in my bed while Gage is possibly suffering somewhere out in the wastes. Or even worse, his corpse being fought over by wild dogs.  
        Overnight, Nuka-Town has turned from a battle zone into a ghetto of chaos and wounded raiders. The destruction the Disciples caused has shaken us to our core, and if people aren’t doing search and rescues, hunting down more Disciples fleeing to the Commonwealth, or assisting the wounded, they’re cleaning. Rebuilding as best they can, but Nuka-Town was a junkyard to begin with.  
        But I’ve never seen the Operators and the Pack work so closely together. While returning to my quarters earlier in the morning, I witnessed a Pack member assisting a wounded operator to the market—which has become the hub of medical treatment for those harmed during battle. Pack members and Operators conversing, sharing cigarettes with one another while comparing their stories of battle. The small silver lining in all of this.  
        Maybe it’s because the Disciples are gone that these two gangs are willing to put their differences aside, now that there’s only two. Or maybe fighting on the same team—side by side against a common enemy unites people. Because at the end of the day, I think they realize something. They’re all raiders—brothers in arms. I only wish Gage were around to see them now. I wish Gage were around to see how the parks lit up last night when Mags got the power going. Because it was beautiful. Something I wish the two of us could have shared instead of him suffering somewhere while I was sent into a sick panic.  
        I should say am in a sick panic.  
        The sound of the lift moving forces me to pick my head up, and when I see Lizzie Wyath come into view, I become intrigued. “Overboss,” she says from the lift, though she looks almost as disheveled as I feel.  
        “Lizzie,” I say, monotone. “To what do I owe the pleasure.”  
        She seems displeased about something. I can certainly relate. “I was sent to speak with you, much to my reluctance. But it seems your…secretary is still missing, yes?”  
        I almost want to bite her head off for referring to Gage as such. But I refrain. “Yes, he’s still missing. And what exactly is it you need from me?”  
        She enters my quarters and sits next to me at the bar. “Mags and William are tied up with other matters. And it seems, so is Mason—though I can’t imagine what that would be. So here I am with a message from Doctor Mackenzie. She’d like to speak with you.”  
        I sigh. “I really don’t feel like going to the market right now.”  
        “It’s urgent. And even though you’re all broken up about Gage for whatever reason, your people still need their Overboss. It might be nice for you to pay our wounded a visit and show them that you care about someone other than your sidekick.”  
        I’m not sure what I did to piss her off, but she certainly is in a mood today. Or maybe she’s realizing where she stands in the pecking order of the Operators. But I’m hesitant to leave. Mostly because I’m in no condition to be a pillar of strength to the wounded, and what’s worse, I don’t care. About any of them.  
        “Boss?” But I don’t respond. “We all know how hard you’re taking this because you think you lost a friend, but I can assure you that Porter Gage only has one friend. And that’s Porter Gage. Do you really think he’d be up here mourning you if you were the one missing?”  
        “Fine, you’ve made your point. I’ll head to the market.” If only to get her to shut up. These people, they don’t know Gage. Not like I do. He puts on a front to them, something I’m certain he’s done his whole life. But not with me, at least, not all the time.  
        I’ve seen the sincerity in his face. The vulnerability he does so well to hide in his everyday life. The things that drive him, scare him. He’s more human than anyone wandering the streets of Nuka-Town.  
        I stand from the bar and dawn my jacket before attaching my knife and one of Colter’s pistols to my thigh—mine having been lost at the power plant. But I don’t assume I’ll be needing much more than these things. Not if the furthest I’m going is to the market, and I certainly don’t plan on being there long.  
        I find it strange that Lizzie feels the need to accompany me. Perhaps to assure I actually make it there instead of running for the hills—which is what I really want to do. Because the way I see it, with Gage being gone, I’m no longer entitled to hold up my end of the bargain. And I don’t much care for the future of Nuka-World. Not without Gage being there. No, now I want nothing more than to storm the gates with the Minutemen at my side, taking out all those we come across.  
        But it’s just anger and fear talking. I know better than to do something like that.  
        When we enter the market, I’m stunned to see the number of raiders scattered across the ground, moaning and groaning in pain from various types of injuries. And some of them are even dead—the traders being too busy tending to the living to clear them out.  
        It smells in here—worse than usual. And while walking through the many rows of raiders spread out on blankets, my stomach turns at the sight of them. I catch eyes with one of them, and his appearance is enough to send chills down my spine. Pale, shaking, looking at me, desperately hoping for me to give him some kind of hope.  
        “What the hell is going on in here?” I ask, horrified at the state of things and why all this needless suffering is taking place.  
        “I told you it was urgent,” Lizzie says while continuing to lead the way to Doctor Mackenzie. We approach her as she covers a Pack member’s face with a sheet. A practice I haven’t seen done in years—covering the dead’s face like that.  
        But at the sight of me, Mackenzie almost leaps out of her skin. “Boss! I…I didn’t know if you’d come. I sent word a while ago, but with everyone being so busy trying to get everything back to normal…”  
        I raise my hand to silence her. Not really in the mood for her nervous ramblings. “What’s going on here? Why aren’t you giving these men stimpaks? Surely the market would clear out pretty fucking quick if you did.”  
        “I know, boss. You’re right. And that’s what they were doing…for a while. We’d give them a stimpak and they’d walk right out like nothing happened. Unless…you know, they broke something, or…”  
        “Mackenzie…I swear to fucking God…”  
        “We’re out of stimpaks,” she says, her voice shaking.  
        I’m stunned. “What?” I snap, putting the fear of God in her.  
        “We’re…we’re out. Even had a few of the traders search all the ground to try and scrounge up more. They brought me what they could find, but…we just weren’t expecting so many wounded. And it was the easy fixes that came in first. But then…as time went on, more critically wounded came. No doubt from not being able to be brought in until after the attacks.”  
        “There is an order to this sort of thing. It’s called triage,” I snap.  
        “I know, boss. And if we would have known the amount of raiders that needed serious treatment, we would have saved the stimpaks accordingly.”  
        “People, Mackenzie. They are people.” I glance around the market again at all the men that are going to die. All the men that won’t get the treatment they need all because of the jerkoffs who were shot in the arm or hit in the face a little too hard. The critically wounded being left to suffer while the ones with minor injuries scamper about Nuka-World with no care in the world.    Simply because they were well enough to make it to the market the fastest.  
        The selfishness makes me sick. “When’s the next shipment coming?” Mackenzie seems like she’s at a loss.  
        “That’s not how that works, boss,” Lizzie says, grabbing my attention. “Nuka-Town is under raider control. Which means no supply lines come through here. The only people who bring in stimpaks are other traders, and the Disciples scared them all off.”  
        “And what about you? You’re a chemist?”  
        “And where exactly do you propose I whip up this miracle drug? My lab has been destroyed after a failed assassination attempt.”  
        I start making my way to the exit of the market. “There’s a chem station in the mountain top.” But I notice she isn’t following. “Lizzie…”  
        “Even if I had the appropriate ingredients to make a stimpak, there’s no way in hell I’d be able to conjure up the number we need to rectify this.”  
        “All we’ve got are problems, problems, problems…does anyone have any solutions here?” I snap, but Lizzie and Mackenzie just stare at me. Mackenzie, terrified. Lizzie, unimpressed. “Or is that just my job?” I turn away before giving them an opportunity to answer because I already know.  
        I storm out of the market, livid, ready to bite the head off of any able bodied raider I come across—convinced that they might have been a source of the problem. But I compose myself. Try to convince myself that these people—they had no way of knowing what they were doing. Just like Mackenzie had no way of knowing so many would be so critically wounded. Because I certainly didn’t expect it either. Not when Mason, Mags, William and I took on the highest ranking members of the Disciples with barely a scratch. Okay, I was shot. But no one saw me rushing to the market, using up valuable stimpaks.  
        But I guess there’s a reason we’re in power and those flooding the streets of Nuka-Town are not. Perhaps not enough combat experience. Not enough injuries to really comprehend the situations in which to use a stimpak.  
        I’m lost in my own world, hardly paying any attention to where I’m walking. And when I accidently bump into someone, I barely respond to the inconvenience and continue on my way.  
        “Hey, you got a problem?” the raider I bumped calls to me, and I turn to him with the quickness, ready to take him down if necessary. But he realizes what he’s just done after getting a look at my face.  
        “What’d you just say to me?”  
        He holds his hands up. “Whoa…sorry, boss. I didn’t know it was you.” But his eyes dart behind me, and I become curious.  
        I look over my shoulder to see a group of raiders crowding around something I can’t make out. But whatever it is, it’s moving toward me. “Boss!” someone from the crowd calls, and I have a bad feeling. “Overboss! We found him!”  
        “God dammit. Guess Rock Gulch belongs to the Operators now,” someone says from behind me.  
        But my heart feels like it stops beating completely, and I almost don’t want the crowd to clear. Because I don’t know how I’ll handle seeing a dead Gage. But as the crowd parts, four Operators carrying a slab of wood with Gage resting on top forces me to run toward them. He’s covered in a blanket, chest bare, eyes closed.  
        His skin is blue, and it’s hard to tell if he’s even breathing. “Is he alive?” I ask, my voice shaking while they continue to carry him toward the market.  
        “He was when we found him. Don’t so much look it now.” I choose to ignore the callus response from one of the Operators simply because they don’t know of our relationship. And he’s not wrong—it doesn’t look good.  
        Gage has cuts all along his chest and arms. They’re very precise, deep cuts, though they’re not bleeding. “Okay…okay,” I say, almost on the verge of panicking. “Get out of the way!” I call to anyone lingering in our path to see what’s going on.  
        The Operators bring Gage into the market, and I grab Mackenzie and tell her to set up a private area for Gage. Whether we’re doing treatment or post-mortem care, I can’t bear the sight of him on the filthy ground of the market among all the other raiders that are beneath his command. He needs a bed.  
        Mackenzie clears out a room intended for a trader, and after Gage is placed in the bed—I notice that he’s completely naked with more cuts along his stomach and legs. But Mackenzie covers him with a blanket, and only then do I realize that he’s not wearing his eyepatch, and the scarred over area is finally revealed to me. Though I always imagined seeing him without it under much better circumstances. Like when he feels he trusts me enough.  
        I sit in the chair next to Gage and watch Mackenzie tend to him, but I’m almost afraid to hear the answer. “He’s alive,” she says, astounded, and I find myself bringing my hands together to thank some higher power.  
        “Can you do anything?” I ask, and I notice my hands are shaking in front of my face.  
        “He needs a stimpak, boss. Or he won’t make it. He’s barely hanging on here.”  
        I bite my lip and start picking at my hands while studying Gage. “What happened to him?” I ask. “Why’s he look like that?”  
        “He’s lost a lot of blood,” Mackenzie says. “Looks like through these cuts…”  
        “We found him chained to a table in a basement in this little blue abandoned house not far from the transit center,” one of the Operators says. “Some Disciples had him hooked up to this weird thing that was draining him of his blood. Very slowly, it looked. But then they had…fluids going into him. I don’t know…it was weird.”  
        “Huh…draining him of his blood and replenishing him to keep him alive. The ultimate torture, in my opinion,” Mackenzie says.  
        “Yeah, whatever. Anyway, we killed all the Disciples in the area. But none of us had a stimpak on us. We donated ‘em to the market last night. Sorry, boss.”  
        I shake my head. “That’s all right. Thank you for all you’ve done. Let Mags and William know that…Dry Rock Gulch is now Operator territory.”  
        “Will do.” The Operators leave after that, and I’m left staring at Gage’s pale, gaunt face, wracking my brain for something to do to help him. But with no stimpaks in the area, I really only have one option.  
        “Mackenzie…I need you to do me a favor,” I mutter.  
        “Yeah, boss?”  
        I take a deep breath and run my hands over my face. “I know you don’t much appreciate all these raiders hanging around. I know you wanted me to kill them, and…I didn’t do that for you.   And I’m sorry. But this raider right here? He’s not like the others. And I care about him very much. Which is why I’m concerned about leaving him in your care.”  
        “I’m not going to do anything to hurt him, boss. I’m a doctor, I…help my patients…”  
        I nod and roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah…the Hippocratic oath and whatnot. But just for peace of mind, I have something to offer you.” She’s quiet for a long time, and so am I. Because I’m not sure how this is going to play out, really. “I’m going to be heading out to the Commonwealth to get stimpaks for the wounded. Which means Gage will be left in your hands. I need you to stabilize him. Keep him alive long enough for me to get him the medicine he needs. And if you do that for me…if I come back and he’s still alive, I’ll give you the thing you want most.”  
        “Boss?”  
        “I’ll set you free.” I look up at her, and she seems stunned. “Do we have a deal?”  
        She looks to Gage, anxious about his condition, I’m sure. But then she nods. “I’ll do everything I can for him. I promise.”  
        “That’s good to know.”  
        I leave the market in a trance—successfully numbing myself, blinding myself to the pain and suffering around me. I don’t respond to those who call out to me while walking toward the exit of Nuka-Town because I only have one goal in mind—getting stimpaks for the wounded. And I’m certain that if engage with anyone trying to call out to me, more problems will be put on my plate. And I just can’t take on anymore. Not right now.  
        I don’t even bother returning to my quarters to grab the rest of my gear. Because I think a small part of me wants something bad to happen to me. The idea of death—much like how I felt the day I left for Nuka-World—it doesn’t really do much to scare me in the moment, even though if I die, Gage surely will as well.  
        But at least I won’t have to deal with the pain anymore. Truth be told, a part of me feels like Gage has already died. Because even though I’m venturing out in search of stimpaks to heal him, I’m not even sure where to look. No nearby settlements will have the amount I need. And the chances of running into a trader this far out from Diamond City is slim to none.  
        So, yes. I long for the peace in which death brings.  
        By the time I make it to the transit station, storm clouds have rolled in and it begins pouring rain, drenching me and the earth around me, though it’s of no inconvenience. My clothes are wet and I’m shivering from the cold, but it’s not enough to kill me. Not enough to weaken me. It’ll do nothing to me, other than give me a small amount of rad poisoning. But even the sound of my Geiger counter ticking seems so inconsequential. And I just feel as though I don’t care about anything that might happen to me anymore.  
        I stick to the main roads—something I don’t typically like to do. But if I have any hopes of coming across a trader, it’s the way to go, though it seems like wishful thinking, running into a trader in the rural Commonwealth. I feel as though I’ve been walking for hours before I see the outline of someone approaching through the rain. And when I see a large Brahmin next to the figure, I almost can’t believe my eyes.  
        I don’t move. I stand completely still with my hand on my pistol until the figure comes closer, and I can finally see the friendly face of a man. “Hey there, friend,” he says as he gets closer, and I always found it strange that traders would just approach anyone in the wastes. Most of them, they have hired guns the closer they are to the city. But this man travels alone, which is all the more off-putting for his friendly nature.  
        Or perhaps I just don’t look all that threatening. “Lookin’ to trade?” he asks.  
        I hesitate. Because I don’t know if I can handle anymore disappointment that’s thrown my way. “You…got any stimpaks?” I ask.  
        “Yeah, I do! Lots of ‘em. The settlements around here can’t really afford ‘em. Guess I should probably stick to the higher population settlements, huh?” He chuckles and starts digging into the pack on the side of his Brahmin.  
        I force a smile. “Uh…how many you got?”  
        “About twenty-five.”  
        I nod. “Okay. I’m going to need all of them.”  
        “All of them?” The man laughs. “All right, sister. But it’ll cost ya two-thousand caps.” Two-thousand caps? What a rip.  
        “I’ll give you three-hundred.”  
        He stares at me for a moment and then a booming laugh escapes him. “You fucking with me? Twenty-five stimpaks for three-hundred?”  
        I force a laugh, but it’s hard for me to do. Trying to act pleasant in any way is hard when I feel so exhausted, so broken. So desperate. “Yeah. Three-hundred’s what I got. And I need them, so. That’s my offer.”  
        But the man’s face becomes serious. He thinks I’m playing a game. And I don’t think he realizes the desperation of the woman standing in front of him. “I’ll give you three for that amount. But no more than that. Now you either take my deal, or you get the hell out of here,” he says while tucking the rim of his shirt into his jeans, revealing a .44 Magnum.  
        I sniffle and divert my eyes to the ground in shame while grabbing my pistol from my belt and pointing it at his face. “I’m…going to need…all the stimpaks.”  
        “You’ve gotta be…” he reaches for his gun, but I pull the trigger before he can. The sound startles his Brahmin, but I’m too focused on what I’ve just done. And when the man falls to the wet ground in front of me, I lower my gun. Completely broken for the crime I just committed.  
        “I’m sorry,” I say while fighting back tears. I fall to my knees, the weight of the innocent life I just took pulling me downward. And I try as hard as I can to hold the tears inside of me, but my chest is tight. The guilt I feel is unfathomable. And I start wailing.  
        It takes me a while to gather myself. Pick myself up from the ground, tear my eyes away from the lifeless man in front of me while the rain soaks and chills me to the bone. And as much as     I hate myself for what I’ve just done, I know I can’t waste any more time.  
        I stand and make my way to the Brahmin that scampered a few feet away from me, but the poor animal is terrified of me. “Shush,” I whisper while running my hand along one of its heads until it’s calm again. And then, I grab everything I can—all the stimpaks and anything else that might be useful before freeing the animal into the wild.  
        I’m numb while making my way back to Nuka-World, unsure of where I’m really headed—though in the general direction. Some otherworldly force seeming to have taken over me and is guiding me back to Gage and all the other raiders that need treatment. But while walking through the soggy wasteland, I find myself in familiar territory. And only when I stop walking to truly observe my surroundings to I realize that I’m only five miles away from Sanctuary Hills.  
        Oh, how easily all my problems would be solved if I just took the route back to Sanctuary. Gage would surely die—yes—but no one would know what happened to the Overboss. Assume me for dead, I’m sure. Because only Gage knows where I come from. And without someone telling everyone where to look, I assume they won’t look for me at all. Hell, I’d probably be a martyr. The  Overboss dying in pursuit of something that would save her raiders’ lives.  
        I want to see Macready. And I want to hug Shaun.  
        But I don’t make the turn to Sanctuary Hills. As much as I want to end my violent life, settle down and try and find some greater meaning, I know I can’t. I’ll never forgive myself if I let Gage die. Because I love him. I fucking love him, and it makes me hate him. A fucking raider. What the fuck is wrong with me?  
        I almost make it back to the transit station, but something catches my eye about a mile out. An abandoned, blue house, and I wonder if it’s the same place Gage was held and drained of his blood. But I continue walking. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. Though when I’m about 100 yards away, I come across a dead Disciple.  
        I look over my shoulder at the blue house again. My curiosity gets the better of me.  
        I enter the dilapidated structure. The ceiling being more torn up than whole. More dead Disciples exist inside, and in the living area, a few sleeping bags and a small—what used to be—camp fire.  
        But I find the door leading down to the basement, and as I begin to descend the stairs, a faint glow illuminates the way. Just as the Operators said, I find a table in the center of the room with chains slung across. And on the ground, puddles of Gage’s blood. The amount being so large that I start feeling sick at the sight.  
        I lean into the wall and cover my mouth, trying to swallow the bit of vomit that arises in my throat when I imagine what kind of hell he must have been through down here. I start to leave, but something in the corner of the room catches my eye. Gage’s yellow cage armor, and on the table next to it, his eyepatch.  
        It’s not ideal to carry these things back in the pouring rain, but I do it for him. Because they’re his. Because I don’t want to admit he might have died in my absence. And because I still want him to feel like himself if he ever wakes from his unconscious state. I want him to still feel protected, guarded from the world around him. Secure.  
        I’m certain he’ll need that when he wakes. If he wakes.  
        It’s completely dark by the time I make it back to Nuka-World, and as soon as I enter the gates, two raiders come to my assist to carry the supplies I stole from the trader and Gage’s armor. We enter the market, and I hand the stimpaks to anyone standing around to be distributed to the most critical raiders—assuring to keep one for Gage. Because he can only have one.  
        When I enter the room where Gage is being held, I’m frozen at the sight of the young raider girl from the Pack sitting at Gage’s bedside. She looks up at me and immediately stands, but I can see she’s been crying. And her hateful stare? It’s no longer plastered on her face. Instead, a look of desperation, and a bit of hope. A feeling I’m all too familiar with.  
        “Is he gonna die?” she asks weakly.  
        I glance to Gage and then back at her. “I’m trying not to let that happen.”  
        She nods and looks down at Gage again before pushing past me out of the room. I barely have a moment alone with him before Mackenzie enters the room. “Everything okay, boss?” she asks.  
        I don’t respond. I set Gage’s armor and eyepatch aside before handing her the stimpak. Sure, I can administer a stimpak. But something tells me she knows the best place in which to inject for the best possible outcome. And after sticking it into his neck, Gage’s mouth opens slightly, and a weak groan comes from him. The sound alone almost makes me cry.  
        “It’ll be a while before he wakes, boss. If we had more stimpaks, he’d probably be talking by now, but…”  
        I shake my head. “It’s…okay. He needs to rest anyway.”  
        “Well, the good news is he’ll live. It’ll just take some time before he’s ambulatory. But he’s tough if he’s lived this long. You never know with him, I guess.” I feel a weak smile spread across my face. “You should get some rest, boss. You haven’t slept in days.”  
        I run my hands over my face and inhale deeply, somehow trying to convince myself that I’ll be fine, but I know she’s right. There’s nothing more I can do for Gage or the other raiders. They have their cure, and now we just have to wait. “Do me a favor, Mackenzie. Come and get me if anything changes, all right? I don’t care if you feel bad for disturbing me or waking me. Just come get me.”  
        “I will, boss.” I turn to exit the room, but I double back. “And don’t worry. I’ll deliver on my promise as soon as all the raiders are out of your care.”  
        She nods to me, a faint smile on her face. And we have nothing more to say to one another. Because now, all I want to do in the world is sleep.  
        I make it back to Fizztop Mountain and peel my soaked clothes from my body before hanging them over the lift to dry. I grab some dry clothes from the chest next to my bed and then crawl under the covers—the sensation of finally being in a bed being enough to allow a satisfied moan escape me. Because I didn’t realize how bad I need to lie down until now.  
        I close my eyes and attempt sleep, but my mind is burdened with the things I’ve done. So instead of finding a bit of peace to send me off into my dreamland, I cry so hard into my pillow until I can no longer keep my eyes open.

        “Boss?” I awake to the feeling of someone shaking me slightly, and it’s enough to startle me into a sitting position. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you…”  
        My eyes adjust and I see Mackenzie standing in front of me. And I feel as though my heart stops beating. “What’s wrong? Is Gage all right?” I ask while moving to the edge of the bed, ready to run to his side if necessary.  
        Mackenzie holds her hands out. “He’s fine, I just…I figured you might want to know that…he’s awake now.”  
        It sends a jolt of energy through my body, and before I know it, I’m out of bed and heading for the lift with Mackenzie at my side.  
        While walking through the market, I realize that a lot of the wounded raiders have cleared out—only a few critically wounded remaining, though they appear to be doing much better, and I can’t help but feel a small bit of satisfaction. I try to convince myself that the trader died so many could live, but the thought depresses me. Because he wasn’t a fucking raider. But as soon as we enter the room where Gage is being held, all the bad thought flee my mind completely when he picks his head up to look at me.  
        I gasp at the sight of him, and before he can open his mouth to speak, I run to his bedside and throw my arms around him.  
        A painful growl escapes him at the feeling. “Come on now, boss. I’m sore as shit,” he groans. I grab his face and start kissing his lips, the edges of his mouth, his cheeks over and over again, and any time I kiss his lips, he kisses me in return, all quick pecks. The sort of kisses you give when you’re not sure which part of someone you want to show affection to more than the others. “I thought we weren’t supposed to do that in front of people.”  
        “You almost fucking died, and I just don’t care anymore,” I say while tears of joy burn my eyes. Because I never thought I’d ever kiss him again. I plant my lips on his again for a deeper, slower kiss, inhaling heavily as I do before resting my forehead against his. And I can’t help the smile that creeps across my face. Though his complexion and gauntness is still a little off-putting, and my smile doesn’t last long. “Are you okay?”  
        “Yeah, I’m all right,” he says while gripping my wrist as my hands haven’t moved from his face. He looks up at me, but the expression on his face is enough to break my heart. Because he seems heartbroken—no doubt from Nisha’s act of betrayal. “You doin’ all right?” he asks.  
        I scoff. “I’m fucking fine; I’m not the one who had nearly all his blood drained.”  
        Gage sighs and hangs his head. “Yeah. So where is the little traitor?”  
        I shake my head. “She’s been dealt with. All the Disciples have been dealt with.”  
        Gage sighs. “I guess that’s what they get for turnin’ on us.” He seems so broken. Much like how I feel, and I’m not sure how to comfort him.  
        “Gage…what happened? How’d she even get to you?”  
        He hesitates to speak. “I’d rather…just not talk about it right now. I feel real…foggy, and…I don’t really remember much of the details at the moment.”  
        I feel my expression soften. I run my hand along the side of his face and caress his cheek with my thumb. He’s absolutely heartbroken. I look to Mackenzie. “Can he come home?” I ask.  
        “He should rest. But if he’s feeling up to the walk, I don’t see why not.”  
        Gage leans upward. “I’m fine, Scarlett. Quit fussin’,” he says, but I push him back down on the bed.  
        “No. Just…stay here tonight. Get some of your strength back.”  
        “I’d rather just go home with you,” he says quietly.  
        “I know. But I don’t think you have the strength to make it there.” He doesn’t like it one bit, but the look on his face tells me that he’ll listen. I lean forward and place a kiss on his forehead. “I’m so happy you’re okay.”  
        “Thanks to you, from what I hear,” he mutters.  
        I shake my head. “It’s nothing, baby,” I whisper and kiss his lips again. But before I can stand, Gage grabs my arm, though he’s weak. But just that smallest movement keeps me on the edge of the bed next to him. “What’s wrong?”  
        He shakes his head. “Nah, nothin’, I just…” he hesitates, and even looks away from me. As if what he has to say is so awful. “You tryin’ to leave now? Or were you maybe thinkin’ about stickin’ around for a bit?”  
        “I’ll stay,” I whisper, and he looks up at me, a faint smile for a brief moment before the sadness and disappointment returns to him.  
        “I’ll leave you two alone now,” Mackenzie says and then exits the room.  
        I climb over Gage to reach the other side of the bed before bringing my arm around him and resting my head against his neck. He wraps his arms around me, exhaling heavily as he does. But when I look up at him, he’s staring straight at the ceiling. “You can sleep, Gage. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”  
        “Heh heh…all right, hot shot. But you better still be here when I wake up or I ain’t ever gonna trust you for guard duty again.”  
        I smile weakly at him and bury my face further into his neck. “You trust me, huh?”  
        “Yeah. And I can’t say that about anybody else.” We’re quiet for a moment when I feel his lips against my forehead. “Maybe one day you’ll learn to trust me too. Just hope you give that a chance before you run on outta here. And I never see you again.”  
        “Shush,” I whisper while picking my head up to kiss his lips. “Sleep now. We have all the time in the world to talk when you’re feeling better.” I kiss him again. And then the side of his mouth, his cheek, his nose, and then the scarred over area where he lost his eye. And when I pick my head up and look down at him, Gage seems astounded by me. There’s a weakness in him, something I’ve never seen before. And I can tell by the desire in his eyes and then the tightness of his lips, he desperately has something to say.  
        But he doesn’t He pulls me back down on him, and I rest my head on his chest. And the two of us lie like that for a while, holding onto each other for dear life, because only an hour before, we never thought we would again.


	19. Orange Colored Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett and Gage discover things about each other.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've played through Nuka-World a number of times. Next to the Pit (Fallout3) and Sierra Madre (Fallout: New Vegas) It's definitely one of my favorite dlc's in the Fallout Universe. But last night was the first time I played through "Open Season," and I felt so guilty after killing Gage that I added a bit more romance into this chapter.
> 
> Btw, for those of you who haven't played through "Open Season," I wouldn't recommend it. You really gain nothing from wiping out the raiders, unless you're one of those do-gooders who has to make all the GOOD decisions when you play. I'll admit, I've always kind of been a scoundrel in the ways I choose to play Fallout--even if I side with the good guys. I guess, like, the "chaotic good" or "chaotic neutral" type. Other than that time I blew up Megaton, which, was wrong--I'll admit.
> 
> But my point is, "Open Season" gives you nothing in return other than Mackenzie thanking you and then rambling on about finding some way to remove the slave collar. That's it. And if someone played through "Open Season" and preferred the outcome, I wouldn't mind your opinion on the matter. Because I really see no point.
> 
> Explicit sexual language/explicit sexual content

        I awake to the feeling of Gage’s lips against mine, kissing me gently while running his hand over his face. I open my eyes to see he’s turned on his side to face me, and he’s staring at me intently. The look on his face shows his gratitude for what I’ve done for him. But a sadness remains in his eye. As if he’s lost a bit of hope for the future, and I don’t know how to comfort him other than kissing him in return.  
        “Looks like we made it through the night,” he mutters, and I give him a weak smile. Because I don’t dare show him the extent of my happiness when he’s clearly suffering in some way emotionally. But some of his color has returned, and even though he’s sore—being careful in the way he moves—Gage insists upon returning to the mountain top.  
        I get him some clothes before leaving the market. We walk side by side, my arm interlocked with his. He wears his armor—something I don’t agree with him doing simply because he has yet to regain his strength, though I don’t dare tell him to take it off. He must feel like he needs to protect himself despite me being next to him.  
        We walk in silence, and Gage mostly keeps his head down, only glancing up occasionally at a few raiders as we pass. But its seems their gaze makes him feel uncomfortable. As if he’s somehow ashamed or embarrassed about his recent trauma and having everyone know.  
        “They’re just happy you’re okay,” I say to reassure him.  
        Gage scoffs. “I figured by now you’d have a better understanding of raiders, boss. Seems you still have a lot to learn.”  
        But his cold response doesn’t upset me. I can tell the closer we get to the mountain, the weaker he’s starting to feel, his irritability being contributed to his discomfort.  
        When we make it to the lift, I watch him lean against the rail. He’s starting to hunch over, and I detect the slightest bit of shaking from him. He looks as if his weight is about to cause his knees to give out right underneath him.  
        We make it to my quarters where my protectron Gage brought my from Rock Gulch stomps around the room, going on and on about Dry Rock Gulch. And as much as I enjoy the thing’s presence, I feel as though Gage might find him annoying in his weakened state.  
        I assist Gage to my bedside. “You need to rest.”  
        “I’ll be fine, boss.”  
        “Scarlett,” I correct, and he looks up at me after sitting on the bedside. An apologetic stare, or perhaps one of regret.  
        “Scarlett,” he mutters. He sighs. “Maybe you’re right. I should probably lie down for a while. The room feels like it’s spinning.”  
        I get to my knees to remove his boots and toss them aside before reaching up to unbuckle his armor. Gage holds his arms up as I pull it off of him and then set it aside. He lowers himself onto the mattress. “Look at this nice, clean bad. And here I am dirtying it up,” he groans.  
        I smirk and pull the sheets up over him. “You’re not as dirty as you think. Mackenzie had to clean you up to keep your wounds from getting infected.” Wounds that seem to have healed nicely overnight, but remain as bright, red scratches all over him.  
        “Well that’s just fuckin’ great,” he groans, no doubt embarrassed by the good doctor having seen him naked.  
        “Do you want to take your eyepatch off?” I ask while sitting on the edge of the bed next to him.  
        He considers. “Yeah, all right,” he mutters and then removes the thing. He hands it to me, and I set it on the nightstand next to the bed. When I stand though, Gage leans up in bed, and his abrupt movements are distracting. “You leavin’?”  
        “I’m gonna go put the Sheriff in the other room. But yes, I need to go pay Mason a visit. I’m sure he’s not too thrilled to hear about the Operator’s getting another piece of land.” He seems discontent by the news. Or perhaps he feels left out. I’m not really sure because he’s hardly talked about how he feels since he came around last night. “I won’t be gone long. Try and rest, Gage.   The sooner you’re feeling better, the sooner you can accompany me on my little errands around the park.”  
        “I need a stimpak, Scarlett. If I get another stimpak, I’ll be up and on my feet in a matter of minutes,” he says, and my expression softens.  
        “I’ll go try and find one for you.” But I know there are none to be found. And informing Gage of all the struggles we’ve had since the Disciples turned doesn’t seem like a good idea. He’s seems broken enough as it is. “Go to sleep. I’ll be back before you know it.”  
        He lowers himself back onto the bed, but he keeps watching me until I’m on the lift and out of sight. But I feel a weight crushing down on my chest. The strong urge to cry comes over me, and I’m not exactly sure why. The only thing I can think is that all of this—Nuka-World, Gage, the recent battle against the Disciples, killing an innocent man and looting his things—it’s all starting to take its toll.  
        The mood of the nest is hard to place. The Pack members, they seem solemn. Upset about something—with me, I’m sure, judging by their expressions as I pass. But they say nothing. No passing remarks or spats. It’s as if they’re angry but they’re not sure if they should be, and I start to wonder about how this little chat between Mason and I will play out. Though I didn’t expect him to be thrilled about the idea of the Operators having a leg up on the Pack, they all knew what was at stake for finding Gage. And it didn’t seem the Pack really put in any effort.  
        “Mason,” I say as I approach him on his throne, though he’s been eyeing me since rounding the cages.  
        “Overboss.”  
        “How are things?”  
        “Things are as good as can be expected.” He’s quiet for a moment, though clearly discontent. But when he hangs his head, I sense a sort of shame in him. “That was some good work you did, heading out to find stimpaks for my guys in need.”  
        “So why do you look so displeased?”  
        “Well, boss. I’m conflicted about you. On the one hand, I’m glad Nisha’s finally out of the picture. On the other, giving Dry Rock Gulch to the Operators has left a bad taste in my mouth. I thought the two of us had a mutual understanding and respect.”  
        “We do, Mason. But you knew the deal. Whoever found Gage…”  
        “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Just figured maybe my loyalty to you would pay off somehow. I mean, I could have let you fall to your death along with Nisha. But I didn’t.”  
        Ah, there it is. “I appreciate what you did, Mason. But if you wanted Rock Gulch so bad, why didn’t you have your men looking for Gage?”  
        “Because I could give two shits about what happens to that little scamp. And I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t wait for him to be out of the picture.”  
        I’m stunned by his reaction because I always though Mason and Gage had an understanding. That they wanted the same things. “Why would you say something like that to me?” I ask.  
        “Your letting your emotions cloud your better judgement. I think you’re a good Overboss—and that’s the only compliment you’ll ever get out of me. But with Gage in the picture, pulling the strings, you’ve become weak. Not at all the person you were when you walked through the gates of Nuka-World. And I’m starting to think that the good of the gangs comes second to your…feelings for Gage.” He sort of cringes on the last bit, though he’s not wrong.  
        “What do you mean by pulling the strings?”  
        “You’ll do anything he asks of you. And I don’t like the guy. Never have, never will. Hell, the only reason I joined him and Colter was to get me and my guys out of living in shit. But Gage is in it for himself. And he’s not man enough to do things on his own. Too much of a coward. I expected someone of your caliber to see that.”  
        A cold chill shoots up my spine. “You’re wrong about him.”  
        “Sorry if I just don’t see it that way. But this right here is why I didn’t trust having a woman running the show.”  
        “That’s enough…”  
        “You can still change my mind, boss. Get rid of the little Judas hangin’ around. He’ll only hold us back. And It’s only a matter of time before he does to you what he did to Colter.”  
        I feel sick at the thought. Not because I think Gage would do something like that to me. But because Mason seems he’ll be discontent unless I get rid of Gage. “Will handing you Fizztop Mountain get you off my back?”  
        He considers. “Not completely, but it will help.”  
        I hold my hands up in retreat. “Done. But your men are gonna need to be the ones to clean up the mess the Disciples made.” I turn away from him to leave.  
        “Hey, boss,” he calls back to me, and I turn to him, reluctant to continue our conversation. “We’re having a party here in a few days. Celebrate the fall of the Disciples. And we’ve got some good fights lined up,” he says while motioning to the cages. “You should come out. See how the Pack does things. You’ll be my honored guest.”  
        I don’t want to, but what sort of Overboss turns down a leader of her gangs when he says he wants to honor her? It’s disrespectful, and judging by our conversation, Mason has had enough disrespect recently. “Sure, Mason. I’ll come.”  
        “Excellent. But that invitation doesn’t come with a plus one. So leave the little scamp at home.” Mason smirks, and I choose that moment to leave before the need to retaliate overwhelms me.  
        As if the Disciples turning on him wasn’t bad enough, it seems the Pack is over the idea of backing and protecting Gage. Something I feel the need to remedy before leaving Nuka-World. Because I can’t stand the idea of something else happening to him.  
        Gage is asleep when I make it back to the mountain top, and I cringe at the thought of all the noise the lift must have made while bringing me to the top. But he remains asleep, and I move myself to the back of the restaurant to Gage’s quarters to give him more peace and quiet. I keep myself busy, tending to my weapons—cleaning them and fixing them as best I can with the materials at my disposal.  
        In the background, Redeye goes on and on about what a great Overboss I am over the radio, and the Sheriff tells me all about Dry Rock Gulch. As cute as the little protectron is, I’m getting tired of hearing about the specials of the park the day the bombs hit.  
        But I keep my hands busy—try my best to keep myself distracted, though the thoughts burdening my mind continue to creep to the forefront. Like how I’m supposed to leave Gage behind after all we’ve been through. How the idea of finding a replacement so soon after Gage’s rescue all just seems like bad timing. And how I’m not so sure I even want to leave anymore. Because I fucking love him, the shit. And that realization kills me the most. I never thought I’d be able to love again. And it just so happens that the person who managed to make me fall for him is a fucking raider.  
        I can’t help but wonder if there’s a part of him I know nothing about. But at this point, I’m not sure it would even matter. Because since I openly admitted to myself how I feel about him, I’ve started to see the world through rose colored glasses—albeit ones that have a bit of radiation mist smeared over the lenses.  
        By the time I return to my quarters, the sun has set, and the room is mostly dim other than a few candles spread out across the room. I move to the far side of the room and stare out the window facing the parks as best I can. The view—it doesn’t really allow me to see much other than the faint glow from the lights after Mags turned the power on. And then I realize Gage hasn’t seen the parks lit up yet. Though he’s in no condition to go see them now, I imagine seeing the parks that way might restore a bit of faith in his operation.  
        I turn to face him lying in bed, his back to me. Still asleep, sweet thing, and he’s removed his clothes at some point during the day—no doubt feeling constricted. And now I just want to be close to him. Even though he’s surely in the deepest sleep of his life, even being so close to him as to feel the heat being radiated from him makes me feel warm and comforted already.  
        I remove my jacket, boots, and pants before carefully climbing into bed next to him. I want to touch him, but I’m afraid I’ll wake him if I do. So I just admire him for a while. Though looking at his beautifully handsome face in the candlelight only strengthens the desire to reach out and hold him, so I turn away.  
        I scoot a bit closer to him so I can feel his warmth on my back, but other than that, I fight the urge to make a connection. We’ll have plenty of time for that when he feels better. I bury my head into my pillow and close my eyes, though falling asleep proves difficult. And only when I manage to start drifting away—the moments before one actually falls asleep, and a bunch of strange thoughts race through the mind—do I feel Gage move, jolting me awake.  
        I open my eyes and hear him inhale deeply before bringing his arm around my waist to pull me closer to him. He starts breathing into my neck—warming me even more before placing light kisses along my skin.  
        I feel him push my hair out of the way before continuing his sweet little signs of affection—ones I assume he’s giving out of a dreamlike state. But the feeling sends chills down my body, and as much as I want him to rest, I can’t resist the sensation.  
        He moves himself closer to me and then grinds his hips into me. I feel his erection on my ass, the feeling igniting my skin in an insatiable way. “Scarlett,” he groans.  
        “I’m here, baby,” I whisper.  
        He buries his face in my neck and continues to grind himself onto my ass while holding me tightly, and I don’t think I’ve ever been held so close before. His breath catches in his throat, and his eagerness takes over. He moves his hand up my shirt and grabs onto one of my breasts firmly while thrusting himself onto me. And even those small movements seem to drive him wild.  
        He starts moaning into my neck, his breath quivering against me as he moves himself against my body. But he’s winded…I can tell. And it frustrates him. He stops moving and kisses my neck a couple more times before turning me onto my back, and Gage is quick to move on top of me and between my legs.  
        He holds my wrists down to the bed, and the look in his eye, I can’t ignore. As if a wild animal has just been freed from its cage, but his weakness seems to be of severe consequence to him. He rests his head on my chest and starts grinding himself against me again. And though I’m pleased to know that his body has replenished itself enough to even maintain an erection, he can’t go on like this, despite how bad he wants to.  
        I try to pull my hands away from him, but he’s so strong even in his weakened state. And his grip on my wrists grows tighter with every thrust he makes against my body. And even I can’t stifle a moan when the hardness of his cock rubs against my sweet spot through my panties.  
        “I wanna make you scream, Scarlett,” he pants against my chest. But he’s shaking beneath his own weight—taking small pauses to catch his breath until moving against me again. “See what you do to me? How hard you make me…” He quivers. “Fuck…a woman like you can drive a man crazy…”  
        “Gage…” but his grip on my wrists becomes tighter, and I wince from the feeling. His skin is ablaze, and I’m not sure this is the best thing for his weakened condition. “Gage, you’re hurting me.”  
        He groans. “Oh…fuck yeah…tell me how bad it hurts…Mmmm…tell me you like the pain…” but I can’t focus on enjoying the moment. He’s out of breath and not even inside of me yet, and my concern for him is hard to ignore.  
        “Gage, please…” he looks up at me. I was right to think there was a darkness in him. One that seems to retreat when he sees the expression on my face. And now, he looks ashamed. He releases my wrists and pushes himself upward onto his knees.  
        “I took it too far for you, huh?” he mutters, disappointed.  
        I shake my head. “No.” I sit up and kiss his chest before gripping his cock and moving my hand slowly up and down the shaft. “You’re weak, Gage. You need to relax.”  
        His breath catches in his throat as his eye rolls to the back of his head from the feeling of me slowly jerking him off. “I need you. Right now.”  
        Yes, he needs to be taken care of. His dick is throbbing in my hand, and a bit of pre-cum comes beading out of the tip of his dick. He won’t last long, whatever it is I decide to do for him. “Lie down,” I whisper, and Gage does as he’s told.  
        I climb over him and kiss his lips gently. “Take your clothes off,” he whispers against my lips. “I need to see you right now.”  
        I lean up and pull my shirt off and then remove my bra, and Gage leans up and covers one of my nipples with his mouth, moaning—almost whimpering as he does. The feeling of his tongue on my nipples has come to be one of my favorites, and when he moves to my other breast to pay due attention, I throw my head back and moan. “Gage…”  
        “Fuck…” he says in between pleasuring both sides of me. “You’re so perfect.”  
        But I push him back down to the bed, and he stares up at me, curious. Wondering what I’ll do next. “Let me take care of you, Gage. Let me pleasure you.”  
        He lets out a quivering breath and then rests his head on the pillow. I start kissing his neck softly, making a trail of kisses down to his chest and stomach, and his abdomen trembles beneath my lips. I grip his erection again and start teasing him—placing kisses on the flesh around his cock before moving up the shaft. When I reach the head, my eyes wander to his face. He’s watching me, almost begging me with his eyes.  
        “Suck me off, Scarlett,” he begs.  
        I kiss the head of his erection and then wrap my lips around that sweet, pulsing spot of him, and Gage throws his head back and moans. I remove him from my mouth and run my tongue over the length of him, pleasuring every part of him I assume needs pleasuring before taking him—the entirety of him deep into my mouth again.  
        He groans while bringing his hands to my head, entangling his fingers in my hair as if to give off the illusion that he has some sort of control—though I assume he very much enjoys me being in control of him in this moment. But I pleasure him like that for a while. Take my time to admire the man shifting and moving beneath me. The sounds he makes when I do something different, like using my lips along his shaft instead of my tongue.  
        Or when I grip the head of his erection and jerk him off a bit while stimulating the furthest part of him. I pick my head up and smile at him before inserting the length of him into my mouth again. And he seems astounded by me.  
        “You like sucking me off, don’t you, Scarlett?” he growls.  
        “Yeah, baby, I do. I like the way you taste,” I say and then continue pleasuring him.  
        Gage quivers. “Shit…I used to jerk off to you every night, boss…” he moans quietly while I suck his cock. “I’d imagine what…you looked like on your knees…in front of me…” his grip on my hair tightens as he slightly thrusts his hips upward—inserting himself further into my mouth. “Uh…” he moans. “Fuck…I’d think about what your sweet lips would look like…wrapped around my cock…taking all of me into your throat…begging me to come in your mouth…” my eyes meet with his. “The picture in my head doesn’t even do it justice, Scarlett. You look so beautiful when you suck my cock…”  
        I remove my lips from around him, unable to fight a smile that spreads across my face. I run my tongue over his head. “You look so sexy when I suck your cock.”  
        Gage quivers, and when I run my hand over his balls, he throws his head back and moans. “Yeah…keep doing that,” he begs, and I wrap my lips around him again to keep pleasing him the way he loves most. “Shit, Scarlett…” he exhales. “I wanted to bury my dick inside of you so bad…that night you put Mason in his place…” Again, he quivers. “I thought about you all fucking night…how you look without your clothes…how your tight little cunt would feel around my cock…” his body tenses when I take him as deep into my throat as my body will allow, and when I choke, he groans. “Oh yeah, baby…choke on me…fuck, it feels so good.” I do it again, and Gage holds me in place a bit longer this time until a booming grown escapes him and he loosens his grip.  
        I moan to show him just how much I love pleasing him. “I love doing this to you, Gage,” I whisper before running my tongue along his shaft and taking him completely in my mouth again.  
        He starts panting. “You’re gonna make me come, boss…shit, Scarlett…” So I don’t change a thing other than the quickness of my strokes. I glance up at him, his head thrown back on the pillow, the rest of his body starting to squirm from the pleasure. “Tighter, baby…hold me tighter,” he begs, and I do. “Yeah, just like that…don’t stop…” He’s moaning loudly, whimpering now, and any second, I know he’ll finish. “Shit…Scarlett…I…I fucking love you…”  
        His words are stunning, but I don’t stop pleasing him. Because what one says in the throes of an orgasm should be taken lightly. Surely Gage would never admit to such a thing openly. No,   I imagine Gage to be the type to show his love through actions, but never actually saying the words. “Now, baby…I’m gonna come now…” he groans, almost shouts, actually, and when I feel his hands try and lift my head from around him, him even grabbing the base of his dick to assume he’ll have to finish himself off, I fight to keep my mouth around him.  
        Gage’s grip on my hair tightens and he thrusts his hips upward when he realizes I want all of him. And not a second later, I feel the warmness of him shooting into my mouth. And it’s one of the sexiest things we’ve ever done together.  
        “Uh…uh,” he moans. “Scarlett…oh my…” I glance up at him, and he winces from the pleasure. “Fuck.” I swallow every bit of what he’s given me, and when I look up at him, he seems astounded by me. Moved by what I’ve done for him.  
        I crawl back up his body and kiss his forehead before running my hand down the side of his face. “Does that feel better, Gage?”  
        He nods and swallows hard. “Yeah…” he says weakly. “Thank you.”  
        I almost want to laugh at his insistence to thank me, but Gage leans upward and plants his mouth over mine, kissing me deeply, seemingly unaffected that I just had him—every bit of him—inside of my mouth. When our lips part, his face hovers inches away from mine—his hands still entangled in my hair. And it’s as if he’s trying to figure me out in some way. Like I’m a puzzle, waiting to be solved. But he doesn’t say anything while leaning back and pulling me down onto his chest. And after the stimulation he’s just had, it doesn’t take long before he’s fast asleep—no doubt needing more recuperation.  
        Gage sleeps the remainder of the night and the next morning. I do whatever I can to take care of him, bring him food and water. But for the most part, he remains in bed other than when he awakes and feels the need to walk around the room for a bit. I breaks my heart to see him like this, though I imagine it’s similar to when I was wounded from the mirelurk queen, and I don’t mind waiting on him hand and foot.  
        “You know, I woulda been better by now if I had a stimpak,” he groans after climbing back into bed to settle himself for the evening.  
        “I know,” I say. “But you seem to be doing great. And I’m sure after another night of sleep, you’ll be fine.”  
        “Need to get outta this damn mountain. Shit’s driving me crazy,” he grumbles. I sit on the edge of the bed, and he watches me for a moment before a smile breaks across his face. “You know…you’re…the last thing I thought about when I was strapped down to that table. Hell, you were the only thing I thought about.”  
        I feel disturbed by what he’s told me, but not because he thought of me. Because when I hear him say those words, it’s a horrible reminder of what he must have gone through and the sick panic I felt when I thought he was dead. I grip his hand and divert my eyes to the space between us. “What happened, Gage? How’d she get to you?”  
        He sighs. “You wanna do this now?” he asks, and I nod. “All right. After the fight me and you had, I…thought it best to try my hand at smoothing things over with Nisha.”  
        He pisses me off. “You went to the mountain by yourself?”  
        “Yeah,” he groans. “I didn’t think she’d do anything. I figured…if anything, she’d appreciate someone putting in the effort. Because by the sounds of it, you hardly tried.”  
        I hesitate to speak. “Yeah, well…she doesn’t make it easy.”  
        Gage laughs. “No, she doesn’t. But she has her reasonable moments. I at least figured I’d try. But she had her man overtake me. Before I knew it, they were draggin’ me out the side of the park.”  
        “And nobody did anything?” I ask, horrified.  
        “Ain’t no one around the base of the mountain ‘cept for Disciples. At least, that’s how it was until you took ‘em down.” His expression fades into sadness again. The same sort of sadness he had when he awoke in the market. The sort of sadness that comes from betrayal. “Guess she blamed me for you bein’ in power. Didn’t too much like how you were handlin’ things.”  
        My guilt overwhelms me. I pull my hand away from his and turn at the bedside to face away from him. Because I just don’t know what to say other than “I’m sorry.”  
        “Hey now,” Gage says while bringing his hand to my thigh. “Scarlett, look at me,” he says, and I do. “I don’t blame you for what happened. I don’t much agree with how you decided to deal with the Disciples from the moment you got here, but…ain’t no one can make a savage to what they feel it’s in their nature to do. If Nisha had it in her to turn on me the way she did, maybe all this is for the best.”  
        It certainly is, and I’m frustrated that he didn’t see that from the beginning. That having the Disciples at Nuka-World was a liability from day one. An unstable group of people—ones who merely pretend to take orders while plotting something much worse in the long run. But perhaps Gage is predisposed to trust his kind no matter how feral they might seem to others. Maybe he thought he was untouchable.  
        But Gage senses my reluctance to settle. “Come here,” he says while grabbing my arm to pull me down on the bed next to him. And even having his arms wrapped around me is enough to make me melt into him, despite the discomfort of the conversation. “Let’s talk about somethin’ else now, all right? What’s done is done, and there ain’t no point in tryin’ to figure out if we coulda done somethin’ different.”  
        I inhale deeply and then let out a sigh while burying my face into his chest. “Tell me a story,” I say, and Gage chuckles.  
        “A story, huh? A bedtime story?”  
        I laugh. “Sure.”  
        He pauses for a moment and then sighs. “I got nothin’, boss.”  
        I pick my head up to look at him, considering the possibilities. Wondering what all I wish to know about him. “Hmmm…tell me something I don’t know about you. Like, a story from your youth. From you…hellion days.”  
        He seems bothered by the request. “You sure you wanna know about that?”  
        I nod, very intrigued by him and what all happened in his life to form him into the raider I know and love today. The sort of raider that seems to have a good head on his shoulders and capable of feeling things I thought all raiders were devoid of. “All right,” he says while pulling me back onto his chest. “I, uh…I made some bad calls when I was younger. Not sayin’ I regret the choice I made, just that…early on, I was a little starry-eyed. First gang took me in when I was 16. Decent sized group, fair amount of muscle. Only they weren’t using it as best they could. Me being new—and young—I didn’t know enough to keep my mouth shut. Started making “suggestions” about how to improve things.”  
        I wince. “You thought you knew better than they did. Bet it didn’t go over well.”  
        “Nah, I didn’t. At least, that’s not what I was aiming for. Eventually, the boss approaches me. Connor, his name was. I don’t remember what stupid ass name he used back then. “The Harvester” or something.” He chuckles. “It was never as intimidating as he thought it was. Laughable, almost. Anyway, at first I think he’s pissed, like I’m undermining his authority. But he actually listens to me…takes my advice.”  
        I swoon. “And three weeks later, the two of you were married.”  
        “Very funny. So here I am, this teenage punk who’s got the ear of what seems like the most powerful guy around. I’m on top of the damn world. Connor’s always coming to me, asking what I think of his plans, telling me how much he trusts me. Can’t lie—it all went to my head. After something like a year goes by of working closely together, we come up with this plan to make peace with a rival gang. We work the whole thing out in secret. Where we meet on neutral ground, who does the negotiating, what happens if shit goes south. I was more than happy to take point on negotiating, with three of our biggest guys to back me up in case no one took me seriously.”  
        “Since you’re telling me about it, I’m assuming this story doesn’t end with your death.”  
        “Brilliant. No wonder you’re in charge,” he says, and I can’t help but snicker. “About an hour in, they’re just starting to come around and realize the deal is in their best interest. And then I hear it. Gunfire and explosions. Lots of both. At first I’m thinking ‘Oh shit, something went wrong, Connor’s gonna have to bail us out. But the more time that goes by, the more I start to realize what’s happening. The fucker set me up, and I fell for it. See, he figured he’s pumped me for all the information I was good for. Having me around much longer, I’d be a threat to his position. So he used us as a diversion, something to keep the other gang’s attention while he and his men ambushed them. He gets their stuff, and I just happen to die in the crossfire. Perfect day for him.”  
        I scoff. “Fucking raiders.”  
        “Hey now, easy with that shit,” Gage chuckles. “Not all of us are like that.”  
        “But you made it out?” I say to urge him to continue with the story.  
        “Yeah, I did. I find myself on the other side of this whole thing, messed up but alive. I can’t go back. The one guy I thought I could trust tried to get me killed. Thought about going in shooting, but that was just anger, revenge talking. And I knew where that would end up. So I moved on. Promised myself I was never gonna be that stupid again, was never gonna trust anyone to do anything but look out for themselves.”  
        His story saddens me, and I can’t help but think he decided to tell this one in particular because of the recent betrayal he felt from Nisha—though by the sounds of it, he hardly trusted her anyway. “Life is hard. There’s no getting around it,” I mutter.  
        “Don’t I fuckin’ know it,” he says. He falls quiet after that, no doubt lost in the pain from his childhood. The sort of experience that would turn anyone into stone. “Not exactly the bed time story you were looking for?”  
        “It certainly was…sad.”  
        “Sorry, boss. I ain’t got alotta happy endings to share with you. I’m hoping maybe one day that’ll change. Seems like it’s already starting to,” he says, and I pick my head up and look at him. That tenderness in his eyes making me smile, and before I can say anything, he kisses my lips.  
        But Gage’s story continues to burden my mind. I’m heartbroken for him, because by the sound of it, he’s never trusted anyone. And having something so traumatizing happen to someone at such a young age can ruin the strongest of human beings.  
        I feel the need to do something for him. Maybe show him that there’s a bit of good in the world. Or perhaps not good, necessarily, because he doesn’t seem to care much for morality. But maybe to show him that a person is able to care for him. To do something so selfless purely out of the love they have in their heart. And maybe that could help him regain some faith in humanity.  
        The following afternoon, Gage and I leave the mountain top. Because he’s all too pleased to get some air and move around a bit more than the confines of our space allows him to. But I have a purpose for our little adventure, and already, I can sense Gage’s mood improving as we walk in the direction of the parks.  
        “This reminds me of when we were clearing the parks. Just me and you, walking along, heading out for our latest adventure,” he says, but then a group of Operators pass. “Well, maybe not just me and you.”  
        I chuckle. “They’ll write stories about us, one day. You’ll see.”  
        “Nah, stories about you. I’ll just be known as ‘male companion.’”  
        I turn to him, now walking backward to continue our trek toward the parks. “I thought you were supposed to deflate my ego. Not build it up.”  
        “Nah. Now that you’re mine, I’ll build you up as much as I can. Makes me feel better about myself,” he jokes, and I raise an eyebrow at him.  
        “Now that I’m yours?”  
        “Well, ain’t ya?” I smirk at him, and he grabs my arm to pull me into him before placing a light kiss on my lips. When he releases me, he gives me a playful smack on the ass. “Lead the way, boss.”  
        He makes me feel all giddy. Though the closer we get to the power plant, the more my giddiness starts to fade, and I’m ripped back into the memory of me and the gang leaders storming the plant only days before. When Gage was taken and being tortured. When I thought for certain Mason was trying to kill me. And when I almost fell to my death along with Nisha. By the time we make it there, the sun is starting to set.  
        “What are we doin’ here?” Gage asks after entering the power plant, and even though the gangs have removed the bodies of the dead Disciples, death lingers in the air. And it’s thick enough for Gage to pick up on the scent.  
        “Just come with me,” I say and start leading the way through the maze of the factory, only effectively remembering the way to the rooftop by the trail of blood being left behind from the bodies that have been removed.  
        We make it onto the roof, and I direct my attention to the pink and orange skyline, nervous that we might have missed the sight already. “That’s a nice view,” Gage mutters.  
        “Come on,” I say while gripping his hand to pull him to the control room on the other side of the roof.  
        We enter, and I’m thankful to see the parks being engulfed by the darkness the fading sun is creating. I move to the window overlooking the parks, and when Gage moves next to me, I feel his gaze shift from the view onto me. “We waitin’ for somethin’?” he asks.  
        I nod. “Yeah. Just keep watching.”  
        He looks toward the parks again, and every passing second, my heart starts beating faster and faster. I’m not sure how he’ll react by the sight. Disappointed that he wasn’t there when it happened? Thankful that I felt the need to bring him out there to see all the parks in their glory? Or completely indifferent to the only act of kindness I feel I can give him at that moment. An act of kindness I’m hoping to restore a bit of faith in him because despite how hard he tries to hide it, Gage is broken.  
        But he seems to be getting antsy, and after a few minutes of waiting in silence and nothing happening, Gage sighs. “Scarlett…I have to tell you something,” he says, and I look to him, questioningly. His eye, fixated on me.  
        “Can it wait? We have to…”  
        “No, it…can’t wait. If I don’t get it out now, I’ll probably just talk myself out of saying it later,” he says, and I nod and turn to him completely. Arms folded, and a look of concern plastered on my face. “Remember that story I told you last night? About Connor?”  
        I nod. “Yeah.”  
        “It was true what I said about not trusting anyone. And since that day, I ain’t trusted nobody, least not beyond how useful they can be to me.” His words sadden me, but that tenderness in his eyes again intrigues me, and even though he seems hesitant to say what’s on his mind, he seems all the more eager to get it off his chest. “And then you came along. And I never thought the two of us would ever be close. Hell, we’re so different.”  
        I shake my head. “We’re really not all that different.”  
        “That means something coming from you. It really does. And with you by my side, I…I feel like I’ve finally found somebody worth fightin’ with. Something worth fightin’ for. And…I don’t want to lose that.” His words are touching. “I trust you, Scarlett. I can’t say that about anyone else.”  
        “Gage…” I say, quiet and soothing, but he looks away from me.  
        “I, uh…meant what I said the other night. I didn’t really intend to say it, but…it doesn’t make it any less true. And I thought maybe you should know that.”  
        I think for a moment. “About…you loving me?”  
        He nods. “Yeah…as much as I hate that fuckin’ word, it came flyin’ out of my mouth in the heat of the moment. But I wanted you to know that I meant it. Even if…I might not say it that often. I’m not tryin’ to get all sappy on ya, but…hell. You kinda just bring it out of me.”  
        I feel the strong urge to cry, but before I can even get a word out, lights in my peripherals pulls my attention away from Gage and toward Kiddie Kingdom where the park lights have come on to illuminate the darkness. “Gage, look,” I say while grabbing his arm and pointing outward.  
        He stares at the scene. Kiddie Kingdom all lit up followed by the other parks not even a second after that last. I glance to his face, waiting for his reaction. Hoping that it’ll be a favorable one. And slowly, his mouth opens. “Nuka-World…all lit up. It’s god damn beautiful,” he says while staring out to the scene.  
        A faint smile spreads across my face. “It sure is. I haven’t seen anything like it…in a long time,” I say, nostalgic. And for a brief moment, sadness overcomes me, and I long to be a part of the old world again.  
        “It ain’t just the lights, Scarlett,” Gage says, ripping me back into the moment. “It’s you. Everything you’ve done for us.” He’s quiet for a moment. “You know the biggest difference between you and Colter?”  
        I smirk. “Besides the obvious?” I ask while motioning to myself, and Gage laughs.  
        “Yeah, besides that. You were willing to bleed for us. You put your neck on the line to get us ahead in this shitty world. And that means something to us.”  
        “I did it for you, Gage. Everything. All of it was…for you.” He seems intrigued. “I don’t know what it is about you, but from the moment we met, I wanted to please you. Do the things you asked of me. Make you happy. And maybe it’s because you put your neck on the line to save me. You put a lot of faith in me without even knowing me. And coming from someone like you, it’s a very beautiful thing.”  
        “Someone like me?” he asks.  
        “Someone who tries to hide the most beautiful parts of him.”  
        His lips become tight, and he diverts his attention to the ground, no doubt trying to hide the “beauty” in which I’m talking about. “You know, I keep wracking my brain. Trying to figure out where in my life I must’ve gone horribly right. Because I don’t know what I did to deserve a woman like you,” he says, and finally, he’s able to look at me again.  
        “I don’t know what I did to deserve a man like you.”  
        He chuckles. “Shit, I dunno. Maybe you were a bad person in a previous life.” I can’t contain a laugh, though not at all what I meant. “I’m bein’ serious though, boss. All this, me and you…it scares the hell outta me. I’m just wonderin’ when the time’s gonna come that you see me for what I am. See somethin’ in me you don’t like. And then you’re just gonna run out on me.” His expression fades into a sort of disturbed look. “I just don’t know if I’ll be able to handle all that. Might not be a good thing for anyone involved.”  
        I’m not sure if he’s warning me. Or if he’s trying to scare me into staying, though he really needn’t bother with the games he plays among his raiders. Because I don’t think I’m strong enough to leave him anymore. I’m just waiting for the moment for him to ask again. “I’ll do anything for you, Gage. All you have to do is ask.”  
        He seems skeptical. “You’ll do anything for me,” he says in a challenging tone. But he’s curious, and it looks as though he wants to say something, though he hesitates.  
        “Gage? Tell me what you want.” He opens his mouth to speak, but still, words don’t escape him. I start to wonder if it’s some deep desire he’s been holding inside of him. Something he feels too ashamed to vocalize to me, and maybe he’s afraid he’ll send me running for the hills if he tells me the sort of thing he truly wants me to do for him. I move closer to him and bring my hand to his face before kissing his lips. “Tell me.”  
        “I…” but something inside of him won’t let him speak. And the skepticism in his eyes makes me wonder if he really does trust me like he says he does. Because whatever it is he’s trying so hard not to say, it seems to be eating away at him. “I, uh…” he hangs his head. “I want to fuck you, Scarlett,” he says.  
        He’s afraid to reveal too much of his soul to me, and I don’t want to push him. Because his confession doesn’t seem to do anything to absolve him. No, there’s something much darker, something much deeper hiding in the corners of his mind. And his fear of me running out on him keeps him quiet.  
        But Gage unbuckles his armor and pulls it off of him before dropping it to the ground, creating a loud thud. His eye, intently focused on me, a sort of hunger in them. He grabs my waist and pulls me into him. And then he devours my mouth, his tongue invading every part of me. And it’s utterly delicious.  
        He grips my ass and pulls me further into him, and I feel the bulge in his jeans growing bigger with each passing second. I want to touch him, and the feeling of my hand over his erection causes him to quiver against my lips. “I want to do really bad things to you, boss,” he says, and I’m starting to get the feeling he likes calling me that when the two of us get sexual.  
        “You can do anything you want to me.”  
        “I’ll keep that in mind for later,” he says, and I can’t help but become curious by what he means. He breathes out heavily against my lips, and before I can kiss him again, Gage spins me around and pushes me down over the control panel forcefully. “Stay just like that,” he demands, and even though it’s uncomfortable, I do what he says.  
I hear him breathing heavily while he trails his hand down my back and over my ass. He reaches around me and undoes my pants before yanking them down forcefully, almost causing me to fall back as he does. Again, I feel his hands on my ass, and they’re rough against my bare skin. My heart starts pounding at the feeling. “I love you like this. I wish I could do more to you right now.”  
        “You can,” I beg.  
        “Nah, it’s not safe,” he says while grabbing fistfuls of my ass. “Christ, Scarlett.”  
        But I hate that he’s teasing me. “Then maybe we should get going.” I go to lean up, but Gage forces me back onto the control panel.         “I didn’t say you could fucking move.” And his deep, gruff voice saying that to me arouses me beyond belief.  
        I look over my shoulder to him, and he takes a knee. I feel his hands spread my cheeks before burying his face in between my legs. And the feeling of his tongue on my clit, it sends a sort of jolt through me, causing me to lean up and howl in pleasure. “Gage!”  
        “Stay down, Scarlett,” he demands from in between my legs, and I lower myself back onto the control panel. And only then does he continue to pleasure me that way, his smooth tongue against my clit. “Fuck,” he says while pulling back and then moving his index finger over my clit and then back to my opening. “I’ve wanted to taste you for so long. You’re even sweeter than I thought you’d be.” He pushes his finger inside of me, and I can’t contain a moan of pleasure. And when he inserts another finger inside, it feels as though fire engulfs my flesh. “That’s right, baby. Get nice and wet for me.”  
        “Oh my God,” I whine to myself.  
        “He ain’t got nothin’ to do with it,” Gage groans before removing his fingers from me, and I almost want to cry out in protest. But his face between my thighs again, his tongue on my clit, it silences me.  
        He’s good at this. So much better than any man that came before him, and in this moment, I want nothing more than to fuck him like that. Straddle his face and ride him like that while he sucks my clit. Jesus, the thought sends chills down my body. He sends chills down my body, and after a few minutes of him licking me, sucking me, taking in every bit I have to offer to him, I start to become weak.  
        That sweet spot of me, it’s becoming tender. The growing desire, it’s reaching the peak level of pleasure, and I’m certain that if he continues, I’ll be done any second. “Gage…” I moan. “Oh, Gage…you’re gonna make me come.”  
        But it makes him all the more willing to continue. That wild animal in him, it takes over as he continues to spread my cheeks and devour any part of me that’s revealed to him. He starts grunting, moaning through all of it, and when I feel that explosion of pleasure leave me and transfer to him, I can’t contain my cries. “Oh my…oh, Gage…I can’t…” I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore, and he doesn’t seem like he wants to stop any time soon. Even when I reach the point of overstimulation and my knees start to buckle. “Gage…Gage, please…stop!”  
        He pulls his face away from me and then smacks my ass, hard, leaving a stinging sensation on my ass. “You ready for me?” he asks while standing, and I hear him unbuckle his belt. But he doesn’t even give me time to respond before thrusting his rock hard dick deep inside of me, causing me to buck forward from the feeling.  
        “Ah!” I shout in pain, but Gage holds me down.  
        He grabs my hips and pulls me back into him with force, and he groans from the feeling. “I love fucking your tight little cunt,” he says. “Makes me feel like the most powerful man in the world, having you like this.” He pulls back and then thrusts into me again and again, harder and faster until he’s panting and sweating onto me.  
        I whimper from the feeling of him being so deep inside of me. “It feels so good,” I whine, and it feels as though I’m carried off to a different world. Something he manages to do every time he fucks me.  
        “This doesn’t even begin to cover the nasty shit I wanna do to you,” he groans. He leans over me, placing his hands on either side of me, accidently hitting a button on the control panel as he does. The sound of fireworks in the distance grabs my attention, and I can’t help but smile at the sight of them going off over the parks.  
        We probably should have warned them we’d be setting off the fireworks.  
        “Scarlett…” Gage whines. “Tell me you love me.”  
        “I fucking love you,” I say through heavy breaths. He continues to fuck me while leaning over me, and even places a few tender kisses on my back before standing upright and grabbing my hips once more. His fingers dig into me, the sound of his breathing becomes heavier, and he starts moaning more frequently. And when I look over my shoulder at him, he’s staring outward at the parks. As if the mere sight of them being lit up is enough to send him over the edge.  
        “Uh…” he moans loudly. “Oh, shit…” he stops moving for a moment and then pulls out of me. I hardly even have the chance to turn and look at him before feeling the warmness from him shooting onto my ass, Gage’s grip with his free hand tightening on my waist as he comes on me. God, I love that feeling. I love the sounds he makes when he comes. And just when I figured he’d collapse over me in exhaustion, I feel the tip of his dick enter inside of me again.  
        I pick my head up and moan when he pushes himself further inside, this time moving slowly and intricately. As if wanting to savor every part of me, every moment he’s spending inside of me. He’s rhythmic in his movements now instead of violently thrusting, though I enjoy both methods equally.  
        He does that for a bit…moves that way until his energy leaves him and he leans over me, resting his forehead on my back. But his dick, he keeps inside of me. Slowly moving in and out, savoring the moment as long as he can. “You promise you’ll do anything for me?” he asks.  
        I nod. “Anything, baby,” I say while looking over my shoulder, and he kisses me deeper than he ever has before.


	20. Baby It's Just You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett feels pressure from the gangs to come up with a plan, and she becomes suspicious of Gage after finding out he might be making moves behind her back.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit sexual language/Explicit sexual content

        The next week flies by, and it’s as though Gage and I are lost in a mist of each other. A rose colored mist, one that keeps us locked away and in each other’s arms while we attempt to find our way out—though we’re not even sure we want to at this point. But the world around us is quick to try and tear us apart. The gangs grow weary, waiting for me to decide what to do next. Something to keep them busy, and I’m not sure what all they expect of me. But it’s their persistence that weighs on me.  
        “So what’s next, boss?” Mags asks while making one of my visits to the parlor.  
        “I’m taking my caps and retiring to a desert island. Try not to wreck the place.”  
        A weak smile spreads across her face. “Whether you like it or not, boss, you’re stuck with us. Because what you’ve done to get here, the burned bridges and salted earth, there’s no coming back from that. You’re in this for life, just like the rest of us. But it seems this was the life you were meant for anyway.”  
        No, it’s not. Far from it, and while returning to my quarters that evening, the reality of having to find a replacement for Overboss weighs down on me. Because as much as I don’t want to leave Gage, I can’t do the things I’m sure my gangs expect of me. I can’t protect my interests and theirs simultaneously. And I’m certain if I stay, I’ll end up just like Colter.  
        Nuka-Town. A sight to be had during the evening, and I no longer feel a cold chill up my spine while walking through what used to be Disciple territory. The warm glow of the trash fires paints a way to the mountain top, and the darkness of the alleyways no longer harbor anything overly sinister or threatening. Mostly just Pack members, and even though I don’t much care for them, they certainly love me.  
        So I feel safe wandering the streets of Nuka-Town. But I’m sure that safety and security, it’ll start to crumble all around me if I don’t make moves soon, my resistance to move forward possibly being mistaken for complacency and laziness. Just like Colter.  
        “Please, why can’t you just talk to me?” a girl says from the darkness of the alleyway as I pass, and I try not to eavesdrop. Relationship complications, I assume. Something I have to look forward to when the time comes to talk to Gage about finding a replacement.  
        But then, I hear his voice. “There ain’t nothin’ to talk about.” I stop dead in my tracks and turn back to the alley. “Look, I gotta get back. The boss’ll be wonderin’ where I am…”  
        “Gage, wait…” the girl says, and I attempt to listen, but her voice is so quiet and soft-spoken compared to his.  
        I back up and turn into the alley before disappearing into the darkness, only being guided by the hazy moon and the sound of the faint voices. The girl is speaking quietly, and only when she becomes a bit more passionate can I make out what she says. “…you can’t just throw me aside like a piece of trash…”  
        “Hey,” Gage snaps, and I stop moving forward to listen closer for a bit. “We talked about this. You knew what this was. Where it was headed…”  
        “You lied to me,” the girl says, and it sounds like she’s started crying.  
        “I saved your life,” Gage says firmly. Almost putting the fear of God in me. “You’re just too stupid to realize, too caught up in your own head and the fantasy you created. Of how it’s supposed to be…”  
        “It’s supposed to be me and you,” the girl says.  
        Gage scoffs. “You’re fuckin’ crazy.” I’ve heard enough. I step out from behind the corner, and Gage and the young Pack girl I’ve seen lingering around look at me, stunned by my presence.    The girl seeming vulnerable, and perhaps a bit frightened by me. Gage seeming surprised, though not a shred of guilt on his face. “Hey you,” he says, that tenderness in his eyes again. But I’m skeptical of him. Very skeptical. He glances to the girl and then approaches me, bringing his hand to the back of my head to bring me in for a forehead kiss. “You ready to head home?” he asks.      “How’d it go with Mags?”  
        I glance at the Pack girl, a look of hatred upon her face as she turns away from us, disappearing further into the darkness. “Fine, I guess. What was…that about?”  
        Gage sighs. “It’s nothin’, boss,” he says while bringing his hand to my back to usher me out of the alleyway, but I pull back.  
        “You said you didn’t know her,” I accuse.  
        “No, I said she was no one. And she is no one. No one you need to concern yourself with,” he says and then starts escorting me out of the alley again.  
        We walk in silence back to the mountain top, but on the lift, Gage can’t keep his mouth shut and allow me to cool off after overhearing his conversation with a young lady. “What, you mad at me?” he asks.  
        I stand on the other side of the lift with my arms folded. “It’s just strange. Seeing the man I’m with lurking in the shadows with another woman.” I scoff. “Hell, hardly a woman. How old is she anyway?”  
        Gage chuckles. “Come on, it ain’t like that.” But I roll my eyes. “Never really struck me as the jealous type.”  
        I shake my head. “I’m not jealous. I’m curious. This girl’s been popping up wherever you may be quite a lot recently. And I’m just wondering if I should feel threatened by her,” I say as the lift comes to a stop, and I enter my quarters.  
        “Don’t worry, boss. I only got eyes for you,” he says, and I can tell by the way he’s speaking, he’s speaking through a smile. But he has no idea where my concerns come from. No, I’m not the jealous type. But I am the type to be on high alert if someone sees me as a threat. And judging by the look on that girl’s face, she’s very threatened by me.  
        “No, that’s not…” I sigh in frustration, but Gage comes up behind me and assists me in removing my jacket.  
        “Hey now,” he whispers against the back of my neck before kissing my skin softly, causing the hairs on my body to stand upright. It tickles, and I can’t help but smirk despite how frustrated he makes me. “Let’s put you to bed now, huh?”  
        Though being put to bed by Gage has a very different meaning than most. And before I know it, we’re wrapped up in the sheets together without any end goal in mind, really. Just him in his jeans and eyepatch, and me, completely naked. But it’s something the two of us do now before going to bed. We’ll be exposed together, talking to one another. Be tender and affectionate, and sometimes it leads to sex. Sometimes not.  
        I lie on my back, staring up at the ceiling while Gage remains on top of me, in between my legs, kissing my neck, my collar bone, my chest. Very light, sweet kisses, and it’s soothing. Like a massage, almost. “I’m not jealous of that girl,” I say quietly.  
        Gage smirks while making a line of kisses from my chest bone to one of my breasts. “Well, good. ‘Cause you got no reason to be.”  
        “It’s just that she’s a raider. And if she has her sights set on you, I can’t help but wonder if I’m in some kind of danger.”  
        He picks his head up. “You think I’d let her do anything to you?”  
        I run my hand through his Mohawk, and he starts kissing along my breasts again before his mouth surrounds one of my nipples. “It’s not that, Gage. But raiders take what they want. And it seems like she wants you.”  
        “You’re right, we do take what we want. But she can’t have me. Only you can,” he says before running his tongue over my nipple again, and I can’t hide a smile.  
        “It’s kind of sexy, you know?”  
        “What? Another girl wanting me?”  
        I shake my head. “Not that.” I bring my hand to his face, and he looks up at me. “Being fucked by a raider. A man whose based his entire existence off of taking what he wants when he wants it…and by any means necessary.”  
        A devious smirk spreads across his face. “Yeah? That turn you on?” he asks while kissing my chest again and then works his way down to my stomach.  
        I nod. “It does,” I say quietly and dreamlike. As if our entire existence only lives in my fantasies. “You’ve got the whole…bad boy vibe to you. And I’ve only ever been with good boys.”  
        “They can’t fuck you like I can,” he says while moving down to my hips and then my thighs, his soft, tantalizing kisses igniting my skin in a delicious, insatiable way. “Can’t make you feel the way I do.” His hand moves up my belly, and he trails his fingertips down my stomach before gently spreading my legs.  
        The feeling of him between my legs, being so tender and gentle on the most sensitive spot of me causes me to start shaking, and I feel my face grow hot. This man between my legs will be the death of me. I’m sure of it.  
        I run my hand through his Mohawk again and let out a quivering breath at the feeling of his tongue against me. I throw my head back and moan. “I want you to fuck me like that,” I say through clenched teeth, him effectively getting me to a level of arousal that I’ve never reached before. “Fuck me like a raider.”  
        He picks his head up and stares at me, curious. “What?” he asks, though he seems somewhat anxious for me to reiterate.  
        “You said that day at the power plant that…you wanted to do really bad things to me. Nasty things. And the darkness I saw in you…I can’t help but feel like you’re keeping something from me. Something you desperately want to do.”  
        He hesitates to speak, diverting his eyes elsewhere while trying to find a bit of courage. “No, that was about something else…”  
        “Gage,” I moan, and he looks at me again. “What bad things do you want to do to me?” I ask, and he considers.  
        “I don’t want to scare you off, Scarlett.” And just hearing him admit that he has something in mind excites and frightens me.  
        I shake my head. “You won’t. I promise.”  
        Gage leans up on his knees, staring down at me, thinking intently about something. Perhaps if he even should show me that dark side of him in such an intimate way. That raider side of him he does so well to hide when it’s just the two of us. A part of him I feel desperate to know because I want to know all of him. All the dirty, grimy parts of him.  
        “Okay,” he says. He climbs off the bed and reaches his hand for me, and I allow him to pull me up. “Come here.” He walks me over to the counter area and tells me to sit in one of the chairs. I try to watch him—see what he’s up to, but his hands on my shoulders force me to look forward. “Keep your eyes forward. Don’t try and look at me,” he says, and already, I feel a bit anxious. “I, uh…I need you to think of a safe word.”  
        His request sort of surprises me. I turn to look at him, but his hand on the back of my neck makes me tense up. He presses himself into my back. “Face forward, Scarlett. I’ll forgive this one, but once we start, you’re really gonna have to start doing as your told.”  
        I nod. “Okay.”  
        “Think of a safe word,” he says into the side of my neck before kissing my skin a couple of times. After a few minutes, he picks his head up. “You think of one?”  
        Hell, no. My mind is racing right now with possibilities of what he might do. What the raider inside of him might do, and I almost regret asking him to do this for me. Or maybe I should say letting him do this to me. But I nod, strangely enough.  
        “What is it?” he asks.  
        “Uh…blarb…?”  
        “Blarb? What the fuck is that?”  
        I feel my face get hot. “I don’t know…I got nervous and said the first thing that came to mind,” I whine.  
        Gage chuckles and buries his face in my neck. “You’re a fuckin’ clown.” He kisses me again, and I can’t help but hide my face in my hand, embarrassed by my own stupidity. “Seriously though, why don’t you just say Enough? If it gets to be too much, just say Enough, and I’ll stop whatever I’m doing.”  
        I nod. “Okay.”  
        “What’s the safe word?” he asks.  
        “Enough.”  
        He nods and kisses my neck again. “Good girl. Say it again and again in your head. Don’t forget it because I’m not stopping unless I hear it. You can beg and cry all you want,” he says and then moves away from me.  
        I hear him exit the room, and even though he’s told me to face forward, I can’t resist the urge to look over my shoulder to see where he might have run off to. And when he seems to be gone for quite some time, my mind races with possibilities once more. Like the idea of him returning with more men, and that thought makes me feel sick. I’d be shouting “Enough!” before they even set foot in the room.  
        But my rational mind manages to put that thought at bay. Because Gage doesn’t seem the type to like to share. I hear him coming back, and I stiffen up in my chair and face forward once more, literally having to fight the urge to look at him and see why he disappeared for so long.  
        But Gage comes up behind me. And when I feel his hand on my back, I startle a bit. But his gentle touch soothes me. The feeling of his hand moving up my back and rubbing my neck before pushing my hair aside, it calms me. And I know he’ll never do anything to hurt me. Not really.  
        He kisses my shoulder, and I’m tempted to touch him. But I don’t.  
        But the feeling of cold metal around my neck followed by the sound of something clicking into place makes me gasp. My eyes shoot open, and I grab the device around me. A fucking slave collar. “No…” I panic, but Gage wraps his arms around my stomach and moves into my back.  
        “Shush,” he whispers. “It’ll be okay. I’m not gonna activate it, Scarlett.”  
        “Gage, I…”  
        “Say it. Say the safe word if it’s too much.” My breath is quivering, and I’m doing as best I can to calm myself. “I’m begging you,” Gage whispers against me and through clenched teeth.   “Say the safe word. I’m ready to take this fucking thing off of you.”  
        But his touch, the way he holds me, the way he kisses me…it calms me slightly, and I manage to regulate my breathing a bit though my heart is still pounding. I swallow hard. “No, I…I’m sorry. Keep…keep going.”  
        I feel his forehead against my back as he exhales a quivering breath against me. Almost like he’s defeated in some way. Like he wants me to tell him to stop, and I feel curious about his reasons for doing this if he doesn’t want to.  
        But Gage spins me around on my seat and stares at me, and all tenderness abandons him. Now, just that darkness I’ve caught glimpses of remains. His eyes move to the collar around my neck. “Oh my God…” he says in that deep, devious voice of his. “You look so beautiful with that thing around your neck.”  
        I hesitate to speak. It’s terrifying, actually, and I find the safe word on the tip of my tongue practically the entire time. Gage grabs my hands and removes a bit of rope from the back of his jeans before binding my wrists together tightly. I wince at the feeling of the rope digging into me, and at the possibilities of what he might do, I shudder.  
        My eyes burn. And as much as I try to keep it inside, a tear falls down my face. Because I genuinely feel afraid now. The idea of the raider having been sexy only moments before, but the reality of the situation being much more terrifying than I ever thought possible. Gage looks up at me. “You scared?” he asks, and I nod. He leans in and kisses my cheek, taking my tear into his mouth as he does. “Good.”  
        He grabs me and flings me over his shoulder before carrying me over to the bed and throwing me down onto my back. Before I can even start to get somewhat comfortable, Gage is on top of me, grabbing the ends of the rope to start binding my hands above me and to the bed post.  
        I watch him do this, and occasionally, he glances down at me. He sees me wince from the pain of my hands being bound too tight, but he doesn’t seem to care. He binds my hands in a way that allows a bit of movement—no doubt wanting to see me from different angles at some point. And only when my hands are completely bound and I’m unable to really do anything does Gage move back to admire me.  
        He straddles me, staring down at me with a smirk on his face. “You’re a real stunner, you know that?”  
        But I whimper, and the smirk fades from his face. He reaches behind his back, and when he reveals a long, shiny hunting knife, I panic again. “Gage…” I say and try to move away, but his weight on top of me keeps me in place.  
        He leans over and covers my mouth with his hand, but I can’t keep my eyes away from the hunting knife, now resting in his hand on the pillow next to my head. “I ain’t gonna hurt ya, Scarlett. I’d never do anything to hurt you.” I’m shaking beneath him though. And even though I believe him, all of this…every bit of it is terrifying. Or perhaps it’s the loss of control I feel that’s scaring me so much. Gage removes his hand from my mouth and kisses my lips gently. “Do you trust me?” he asks, and I hesitate to nod. “You want me to stop? You know what to say if you do.”        I consider. I sort of do, the knife having pushed me past the point of feeling unnerved. But the look in his eyes keeps me silent. Because he doesn’t want to stop. And I want to please him.            Because I’m afraid to admit that if I can’t accept this part of him, then maybe the two of us weren’t meant to be. I shake my head. “N…no.”  
        He leans up again, and my eyes drift to the knife in his hand. “Everything that’s yours is mine now, you hear me? All your food, your caps…hell, even you. Every…part of you,” he says while trailing the knife over my breasts and circling it around one of my nipples. “In return, you get something from me that no one else can offer you. My protection. You understand me?”  
        I nod. “Yes.”  
        Gage thrusts the knife up to my neck, paralyzing me. And now, he’s inches away from my face. “Don’t fucking talk. I’m gonna ask you yes and no questions, you either nod or shake your head. I make myself clear?”  
        I nod while forcing my head back on the pillow…my body becoming tense while I try to distance myself as far away from the knife as possible. But Gage retreats and sits up once more, trailing his knife back down my body as he does.  
        He becomes eager and excited in this moment. He moves himself further down my body to where he’s straddling my hips now and then undoes his jeans with the knife still in his hand.   Though once he’s freed himself, he presses the knife onto my chest. “Oh shit…” he says quietly, and I glance down at him. His dick is hard, and he starts stroking his erection while staring down  at me, admiring the sight of me in such a vulnerable state.  
        “You’re so beautiful,” he quivers. “I’m so in love with you,” he says in a whisper, and it’s enough to make my heart melt. And all that fear I felt moments before completely disappears as he breaks character and looks down at me as if he’s the one being bound.  
        “Keep going,” I say, and even though I suspect he’ll lash out for me talking, Gage’s eye softens. A look of appreciation—a slight smirk from him.  
        He climbs off of me and manages to flip me onto my stomach with one hand, the position being much more uncomfortable than the previous. But Gage smacks my ass harder than ever before, and I howl at the feeling, throwing my head back as I do.  
        The sharpness of the blade, I feel it trailing down my spine now. “I’m gonna mark you now, Scarlett. So everyone knows your mine. That you belong to me.”  
        I don’t like the sound of this, and I’m tempted to shout Enough. Because being branded? I’m not a fan of that. I’m not a Brahmin, for fucks sake. But my curiosity gets the better of me because I know Gage won’t inflict a serious wound.  
        His knife reaches the crack of my ass and then moves to my right cheek. “Now would be a good time to use the safe word if you’re feeling anxious. Because this is gonna hurt.” I hesitate to speak, but my mind blanks. And then I feel the sharpness of the blade swipe across my ass, and it is painful. So painful that I cry out, but so exhilarating that I want him to continue. But Gage tosses the knife aside, and I feel his hands on my ass again.  
        The trickling of my own blood tickles me, though I can tell that it’s not a lot. Not deep enough of a wound to expose too much of my vital fluid. Gage spreads my cheeks and grips my ass firmly in his hands before I feel his mouth on my wounded side. He’s kissing me, sucking me, even biting me a bit. And when I feel his mouth on my scrape, my body tenses. And it’s a strange feeling. It feels so wrong that he’s doing that, devouring me in such a way. But when he moans, I can’t help but surrender to the feeling. Because we’re both finding pleasure in this sickness between us.  
        I feel Gage lean up, and his hands on my waist pull me upward as well. “Get on your knees,” he orders, and I do as I’m told. Though it’s a very physically demanding position, my arms being bound too tight to rely on them for any sort of support.  
        Gage grabs the knife again and then grabs a fistful of my hair to pull my head back. I feel the blade on my neck again, just below my slave collar. “I’m gonna fuck you now. And it’s gonna be painful. But you’re gonna take it like a good little girl. If you wanna make it out of this alive, that is.”  
        I groan at the feeling of him forcing my head back down, and before I know it, Gage is positioning himself behind me once more. He smacks my ass again, and I wince at the feeling.  “There’s a fine line between pleasure and pain, Scarlett. Somethin’ tells me you’re just startin’ to realize that.” His hand moves between my legs, and I feel his blade run against my thigh before  he sticks his fingers inside of me. “Jesus Christ, you’re so fucking wet.” He removes his fingers and then starts playing with my clit—a strange sensation because on the one hand, it feels  amazing, and I can’t contain a moan. But on the other, the same hand he’s using to touch me continues to hold his knife.  
        He uses his other hand to guide his dick into me, and once the head is inside, he thrusts into me deeply, knocking me forward with the force of him. “Mmmmm…” he groans. “Fuck yeah.”  Christ, he fills me in the most perfect way possible. He starts fucking me like that, hard, keeping his knife in his other hand while stimulating me. And it’s the perfect combination of pleasure and pain—though far from the sort of pain he promised to inflict, which, I’m not angry about.  
        But it doesn’t take long before that aching desire builds up in my core. That dire need, begging to be released, only growing more and more powerful with his forceful thrusts and continued stimulation of my clit. I start shaking, my skin burning red hot as I feel that explosion come from between my legs and move outward to the rest of my body. That all-encompassing sort of orgasm, and it makes me weak. “Uh…” I moan. Hell, I want to scream and shout his name, but he told me not to talk.  
        “I can feel you…” he says through heavy pants. “Shit, keep comin’ for me, Scarlett.”  
        I start to whine from the intense pleasure of his unrelenting thrusts into me. The feeling of his fingers still rubbing me, and the feeling of the knife being so close to the most precious parts of me. And I’m amazed at how much I’m enjoying this.  
        I feel the need to collapse from exhaustion, but Gage keeps his free hand on my hips, and my binds prevent me from really doing anything. But my orgasm fades, and Gage pulls out of me.    “You think I’m done fucking you? I ain’t even started yet,” he growls and then forces my hips back down on the bed.  
        I get a bit of relief from this position, but my wrists are sore. A tingling sensation in my fingers started a while ago, and I’m starting to lose the feeling in my hands. When I look up at them, I see that they’re purple. I rest my forehead against my pillow and wait for what’s next, but the sound of Gage spitting causes me to pick my head up.  
        I can barely see him over my shoulder, but he’s looking down at me, jerking himself off a bit, and I can only assume he’s spit into his hand. Which is suspicious because I just came, and I feel myself dripping onto the bed beneath me.  
        He tosses the knife aside and moves over me again. But this time, I feel one of his hands on one of my ass cheeks. And when I feel the head of him pressing into my ass, I become tense and try to pull away from him. But Gage holds me in place. “I told you, every part of you belongs to me. And I’m not stopping until I have every part of you.” I quiver. “You know what to say if you want me to stop.”  
        But I don’t fucking say it. I’m not sure I want him to continue, that’s for sure, but something keeps me from saying Enough. And when he pushes himself further inside of me, I throw my head back and cry out in pain.  
        “Say it, Scarlett,” he demands, but I don’t. So he advances further, and I wince. A shaky breath escapes me, and I almost start crying. From pain and from pleasure. The pleasure I get from allowing him to do this to me. “Fucking say it,” he demands, but I don’t, and Gage thrusts himself as far into me as my body will allow.  
        I throw my head back again and whine, but Gage’s booming groan drowns me out. He stays like that for a moment, his heavy breathing now being the only thing I can hear. But after repositioning himself, he starts to fuck me like that. And he’s not being gentle. Though after what I’ve asked him to do, I don’t know why I felt he might be.  
        “Shit…no man’s ever done this to you before, have they?” he groans. “No man’s ever fucked you this way before…right, baby?” I shake my head, and that elicits a whine from him. Knowing he’s the only man to do this to me. He leans over me, his face now hovering inches away from my cheek while thrusting deep inside of me, every movement causing his breath to quiver against me. “I’m never letting you go, Scarlett. Not after everything you’ve made me do to you.”  
        Gage hangs his head and moans loudly, his thrusts becoming slower though just as forceful until he holds himself deep inside of me for a moment. When he pulls out, I can’t help but think he’s come. But Gage turns me onto my back, and for the first time in what feels like forever, I get a good look at his face.  
        He’s red, panting, his cock still so hard and swollen. He grabs my legs and hoists them both onto his left shoulder—keeping my legs together to perhaps mimic the tightness of my ass. I feel him guide himself into me again. He pushes himself inside of me, and I much prefer this to his previous method.  
        I close my eyes and lean my head back, swallowing hard as I do. Enjoying the feeling of him moving slowly in and out of me. Precise in his movements, rhythmic like the day at the power plant. His hardened edges seeming to have softened by now, and when I pick my head up to watch him, his eye is tender again.  
        He kisses my calf and then wraps his arms around my legs completely, pulling me further back into him while he moves in and out of me. And I can’t help but stare at his body in this moment. Though my lower half covers his left side, his naked right side is revealed to me. And the way his muscles tense with every thrust, the way his hips move, his biceps being flexed from holding my legs so close to him…it drives me insane. This man drives me insane, and I never want to let him go.  
        But Gage becomes a bit more intense with his movements, thrusting a bit harder and harder each time. His lips become tight, and he squeezes his eye shut tight for a moment. “I’m gonna come, Scarlett…” he groans, and I so badly wish I could touch him right now. He opens his eye and looks down at me. And all the raider in him leaves completely. Now, all I see in his face is love. “I wanna come inside you.”  
        It’s not a good idea, really, though I don’t verbally object. And it’s strange hearing this from him. Perhaps just caught up in the moment again. “Gage…”  
        He exhales heavily through his nose and presses his face into my calf before kissing my flesh again, eye shut tight as he does. But his quivering breath, his shaking arms…the way his movements become shorter and firmer…I know he’s close. “Tell me you want me to, boss. Tell me you want me to come inside you.”  
        He seems desperate for that bit of relief. “I want you to come inside of me,” I say weakly, and the only reason I do is for the simple fact that I’m certain I can’t get pregnant. Not after spending 200 years on ice, and since being out of my cryogenic stasis, I’ve yet to have my period again. The reality of the situation having devastated me after Shaun’s death, even though I never imagined falling in love again.  
        But Gage seems stunned by my words. He holds my legs tighter, thrusts deeper and deeper each time until he holds himself as far into me as he can go. And the pained expression on his face is beautiful. The sort of expression he gives when he’s having the best orgasm of his life. “Uhhhh…” he moans, his voice shaky as he thrusts into me a few more times before holding himself inside again. “Oh…” He holds his breath. His fingers dig into my thighs as he seems to be lost in a world of pleasure. And then he exhales heavily.  
        He opens his eye to look at me again before pulling out of me and lowering my legs back onto the bed. He grabs the knife and climbs over me, cutting the ropes that bind me to the bed. When he’s untangled them from my wrists, Gage brings my hands to his lips and starts placing rows of kisses along my wrists and massaging my hands to bring the circulation back.  
        “Come here,” he says quietly and then pulls me upward until I’m in his embrace. I feel his hands move behind my neck. I hear a clicking sound followed by the weight of the collar being lifted from me, and Gage tosses the thing aside before kissing my neck. “You all right?” he asks, and I nod. “You know you can talk now, right?” I force a weak smile and nod. “Come on, don’t leave me hangin’ hear,” he says through a smirk, but I sense a bit of nervousness coming from him. “Say something. Please.”  
        “I love you,” I whisper and then rest my head on his shoulder, and Gage lets out a quivering breath before wrapping his arms around me tightly.

        I lie on his chest, drifting in and out while Gage massages one of my hands, kissing my fingers intermittently as he does. “You might be a little sore tomorrow.”  
        I snicker. “I’m sore now,” I say against his chest. And even though I want nothing more than to sleep, I can’t until I ask him something. I pick my head up to look at him, and he focuses on me intently. As if waiting for this moment. “Have you done this before?” I ask, and he hesitates to answer. “I mean…to someone who…might not have wanted you to?”  
        His eye narrows at me. “You think I’d tell you if I did?” His response disturbs me. “Come on, Scarlett. You know me better than that. The worst I’ll ever do is kill a man. But I’ll admit, there are worse things than death. What you’re talkin’ about, it’s beneath me. Beneath us, our raiders. It’s not how we operate.”  
        “I thought raiders just take what they want.”  
        He nods. “Yeah. Most of ‘em do. And sure, we take things we want too. To survive. Things we feel we’re entitled to. But another person’s body? There are some things in this world even I won’t do.”  
        “You have slaves.”  
        “All right, fine. You got me there. But I don’t really see them as slaves. They’re traders that we prefer to keep on a short leash. Can’t have ‘em runnin’ all over the Commonwealth tellin’ people all our weaknesses. Tryin’ to take back somethin’ we fought hard for.” His logic makes sense, but it’s in this moment that I start to scare myself. My way of thinking having been compromised because of the love I have for the man beneath me.  
        I run my hand over my face and try and shake the thought, but now I can’t help but wonder if I’m really just suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. And whether or not my love for Gage is truly blinding. That according to me, he can do no wrong, and that’s very dangerous territory for a woman in my position.  
        But maybe Mason was right about me.  
        When I awake the next morning, Gage is still asleep next to me. And despite how sore I feel, I take the opportunity to get ready for the day and head to the market. Because I have unfinished business—business I still haven’t found the courage to reveal to Gage. Because I’m not sure how he’ll react to such a request.  
        “Mackenzie,” I call to her, and as I approach, he eyes become wide. As if today is the day that she’ll be set free. “Can we have a word in private?”  
        “Sure, boss. Follow me.”  
        We enter one of the shacks that the traders use for supply, and I’m apprehensive about continuing the conversation. Mostly because of the look of hope upon her face. Though I have every intention of setting her free, it’s something that’s going to require some finessing, and Gage is difficult to…finesse once he’s made his mind up about something.  
        “I haven’t forgotten about our deal. And rest assured, you’ll be set free soon. But it’s going to take some more time.” Her hopeful expression, it fades into a solemn one. “The raiders see you as an asset, and I’m sure you know this. All I’m asking is you be patient, and I promise I’ll deliver.”  
        She’s quiet for a moment. “And what about the other traders?” she asks, and I can’t even begin to explain how setting them free just won’t work. Not from my position anyway. As if the raiders of Nuka-World weren’t already losing faith, setting their traders free would only paint a bigger target on my back.  
        “I’m not sure I can do anything about that. But I’ll be having a conversation with Gage later on today, and I’ll see what I can do. For now, let’s just focus on you. Do you have somewhere to go once you’re free? We won’t be able to escort you anywhere.”  
        She nods. “Yes. I’d rather try my luck out there than stay here,” she says.  
        “Good to know. Give me a few more days to get the ball rolling on this, and…just keep this to yourself, okay? I don’t need you giving any of the other traders false hope.”  
        She seems displeased, and so am I. My cold and callus behavior to their plight is very unlike me—the idea of slavery being one of the reasons I joined up with the Railroad to help liberate synths—though that goal sort of dwindled after taking out the Institute. “Sure, boss. Whatever you say,” she says.  
        “How’re we doing with stims?”  
        “Uh…a few traders have come through. We have more than before, but it’s still not enough to supply all of Nuka-World.”  
        This isn’t a good sign. Because even if I had our “next step” figured out, it would be pointless without being able to supply the raiders with the necessary means to heal themselves. A suicide mission, whatever that mission turns out to be.  
        I let out a heavy sigh. “Okay. Just…keep a log of all the stimpaks coming into this place, and make sure William Black gets them. It should go without saying that these are not for sale at the present time, yes?”  
        “Yeah, boss. I haven’t been selling them. But our Medx supply is dropping drastically…”  
        “Put a hold on that as well. These raiders are doing anything to put their lives in danger at the moment. If they get hurt, it’s from their own stupidity, and we shouldn’t have to waste resources on that kind of behavior.”  
        “Whatever you say.” Still, she seems disheartened.  
        “I’ll be back in a few days to talk about your release. Just…hang in there.” Hang in there? Easy to say for someone whose never been a slave, but I excuse myself before I say anything else I might regret.  
        But while walking back through Nuka-Town, I can’t ignore comments from passing raiders. Nothing insulting—not like when I first arrived. But they want something to do. They’re looking at me to give orders, and I have nothing to offer them.  
        “Anything we can do?” a Pack member asks.  
        “What’s the next step, boss?” an Operator says as I pass, and I do my best to ease the situation. Tell them to clean up the parks, reinforce security. But I’m running out of things to keep them busy, and I can’t help but feel their waiting for me to give the order on something I really don’t want to do.  
I need to talk to Gage.  
        When I return to the mountain top, Gage is awake and fully clothed in his armor and everything. He turns to look at me, a slight grin on his face. “I hate waking up to see you’ve run out on me.”  
        “Sorry, I…had something to take care of.” He stares at me, waiting for me to elaborate, I’m sure. Because Gage has made it very clear as of late, my business is his business. “We need to talk about a few things.”  
        His expression is stoic, and he’s quiet for a while. “This the sort of conversation between me and you? Or me and the boss?”  
        “Uh…boss.” But I cringe at the word.  
        “Okay. What can I do for you, boss?”  
        I motion to the armchairs next to the window. “Sit down,” I say and take the chair facing in toward the room. Gage sits across from me, an expectant look upon his face. I even detect a bit of excitement, no doubt hopeful about revealing some sort of plan to him. Gage thrives on that shit. Any sort of plan I come up with, he’s right there telling me how much he likes it or what he thinks needs to change, and it’s something I quite admire about him. To be honest, whenever he acts all official, it makes me want to jump his bones even more.  
        But right now isn’t the time, and actually, I feel nervous about our conversation. I clear my throat. “Two things…you know Mackenzie from the market?”  
        He nods. “The doctor.”  
        “The one who saved your life,” I follow up, but he doesn’t seem convinced. Doesn’t really seem all too thrilled about giving her credit for anything.  
        “You saved my life. Don’t go giving credit to someone who don’t deserve it.”  
        His response makes me wince. “Uh…okay, well you don’t know what all she did to keep you alive while I was out finding stimpaks, so…”  
        “So what’s your point?”  
        “I…may have promised her something if she kept you alive. Because to be honest, I wasn’t so sure she’d do everything in her power to help you.”  
        Gage is displeased. He already knows where I’m going with this. “Uh huh. And what’d you promise her?”  
        I hesitate. “Her freedom.”  
        Gage laughs, and the sound makes me feel sick. He does a double take, assuring that I said what I really said. “Now why the hell’d you go and promise her something like that?”  
        “I just told you why,” I snap.  
        He nods. “Yeah, all right. But you and I both know that ain’t gonna work out. She’s the only doctor here in Nuka-World, and if you let her leave, the raiders are gonna suffer.”  
        “All at the cost of having you alive and well. I think it’s a fair trade.”  
        “It’s not gonna happen, Scarlett.”  
        “You’re talking to your Overboss right now, Gage. Show some respect.”  
        “I didn’t mean anything by it, boss. Just that, letting her go is a bad call. Not gonna make the raiders too happy,” he says with a scowl on his face, and I know he’s right.  
        I sigh and run my hands over my face. Instead of telling him what I want—which clearly isn’t working—I need to change my tactics. Approach this from a point of reason instead of emotion.  Like how I used to make decisions before my judgement became clouded by the man sitting in front of me. “Yeah, well…I’ve been thinking about all that. About how…having a slave as our doctor might be counterproductive to the healing process. I remember when the Operators brought you in after the blood had been drained from you. And I remember Mackenzie working on you. And she put on a good show when I was in the room. But the idea of leaving you alone with her…it scared the hell out of me. Because what reason does she have to work so hard to keep you or any of the other raiders alive when she loathes our very existence?”  
        He seems interested. “Uh huh.”  
        I stand and move to the window overlooking Nuka-Town. “I think it’s time we bring in another doctor, Gage. One with similar interests as ours. Someone like-minded. One we don’t have to control. One that simply wants the kind of life we’ve created for ourselves.” But a thought crosses my mind. “Or…even just someone who enjoys the field of medicine and furthering her research so much that she’ll turn a blind eye to whatever we do. We treat her well; she makes a decent living out in here Nuka-World. And we all win.” Gage is quiet for a moment, and I turn to face him.  “What do you say?”  
        He considers and then nods. “Yeah, okay. I like the sound of that.” Oh, thank God. “But where do you suggest we go looking for this doctor?”  
        “I actually have someone in mind.”  
        “Oh, yeah?” he asks.  
        I nod. It’s really the only way to deliver on my promise to Mackenzie. “I’ll need to get a message out to Sunshine Tidings. To a woman named Curie. Tell her that Scarlett is requesting her presence at Nuka-World. She’ll come.”  
        “All right. Sounds like a plan, boss.”  
        “Next…” I sigh and throw my hands out to my side. “What is next, Gage? The raiders are growing impatient, and I’m not really sure what they want from me.” He studies me for a moment.   He has something on his mind, something that’s proving very difficult for him to say. He hesitates to speak, but then withdraws his efforts. And then he sighs. “What, you have an idea?” I ask.   Still, he hesitates. “You’re going to have to point me in the right direction here, Gage. Because I thought taking over the parks was the end goal.”  
        “Sure, okay. You did well getting the parks under our control, and the gangs, they back you one-hundred percent. But this bunch of low-lives need something to focus on. A goal to work toward.”  
        I scoff. “And…what goal do you suggest we work toward?”  
        He considers. “We need to expand.”  
        I already don’t like where this is going. “Is that right?”  
        “Yeah, it is. Taking back Nuka-World was a big freaking deal, no question. But it can’t be the end goal. I suggest we start to move out to the territory surrounding Nuka-World. Claim all the land within a ten-mile radius to prevent anyone from sneaking up on us.”  
        “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?” I ask, suspicious.  
        “What do you think I’m saying?”  
        “Well, Gage…it sounds like your end goal might be something of conflicting interests,” I say, unimpressed.  
        He studies me for a while, a scowl upon his face. “Shit, boss…I don’t mean the Commonwealth, if that’s what you think.” But he’s acting strange. Disappointed, almost, though as much as I try to figure him out, I just can’t. His armor, it’s too thick. “I’m just saying that we need to gain control of the ground surrounding Nuka-World. That old junkyard a few miles away, the Red  Rocket Station out near Kiddie Kingdom. All those abandoned homes on the hill over there. A lot of threats could be hiding out there, and we need to wipe ‘em out. Set up outposts,” he says  firmly and rather passionately, and I’m not sure why he’s so upset all of a sudden.  
        “Fine, Gage. If that’s what they want, give it to them.”  
        “All right then,” he says while standing. “I’ll go talk to the bosses now. You stay here and get that message written for your friend over at Sunshine Tidings.” But he doesn’t look at me as he  passes and steps onto the lift. And even when he starts going down, it seems as though he’s actively trying to avoid eye contact with me.  
        What a scoundrel, and I can’t help but feel sad about our parting of ways. But Gage is up to something, and I find myself questioning his motives. Though I try to convince myself not to be angry with him. If I’m angry, I’ll pick a fight. And his defense will be one he’s used before. “Have you ever heard me say I wanted the Commonwealth?” Which, no, I haven’t. But after our conversation, I feel less trusting of him. And that breaks my heart.  
        Gage is gone for a long time, and by the time he returns, the sun is starting to set. I’m sitting on my bed, arms resting on my knees and trying my best to appear normal to him. But it’s so hard to do when he enters the room and directs his attention to me. He’s burdened, troubled by something. But his expression softens when he looks at me.  
        “Hey you,” he mutters.  
        “Hey,” I say weakly. “How’d it go with the bosses?”  
        Gage nods. “That’ll keep ‘em busy for a while.”  
        Well, at least there’s that. But I don’t agree with expanding the raiders’ reach, and now more than ever, I feel the strong desire to find a replacement for myself. And soon. But when I look at Gage, I feel like crying. Because I know that I’ll have to leave him behind. But I can’t keep pretending this is the sort of life I’m capable of living. It’ll destroy me more than if I leave the man I love.  
        “I fixed it, Scarlett,” he says quietly. “You don’t have to look so sad.” But he doesn’t know what I’m thinking. And I’m not entirely sure what’s on his mind either.  
        “I don’t like this, Gage. Not one bit.”  
        “Yeah. I figured that.”  
        I think long and hard, but a tightening in my chest forces me to look away from him. And as much as I try to fight it, a tear falls down my face. “I…can’t be the one to head this up. This is something…you’ll have to do on your own.”  
        He’s quiet for a long while, and his silence beckons my gaze. “What’re you talking about?” he asks.  
        I hesitate to speak. “I think now is the best time to put someone else in charge. At least until the right person comes along. I’d like that to be you, but…”  
        “No, Scarlett, you’re…” he swallows hard. The look on his face is pained, concerned as evidence by his narrowed eyes and his hesitation to continue. “You’re not…leaving me…? We’re in this together.”  
        “You knew I needed to leave at some point,” I say quietly.  
        “Why? So you can get back to all your people in the Commonwealth? All the people you hate? All the people you resent because of what they made you do to your son?” he snaps, and his words make it hard for me to think of anything to say in return. Because he’s right, and I regret sharing that information with him. I never thought he’d use it against me. But Gage moves toward me quickly and sits on the edge of the bed to grab my hands. “Look, Scarlett…” he says delicately. “You don’t owe those people a god damn thing. They ain’t ever done anything for you.”  
        “They helped me find my son.”  
        “Yeah, and then convinced you to take ‘em down. What was that you said? For the good of the Commonwealth?” Preston’s voice rings throughout my mind, and I cringe. “Your place is here with me. The one person in the world who actually gives a shit about what happens to ya. And in a world like this, you and I both know you can’t just walk away from that.” God, he’s killing me. Because he’s so right. Everything he says is true. So why am I finding it so hard to get on board with him? “I mean, come on…it’s just some land around Nuka-World. Hell, it’s practically ours already.”  
        I consider. I still don’t like it, giving the raiders more land than they deserve. But maybe it’s the best way to keep them happy and keep them doing what I ask. Because if I piss them off, they might turn on me. They’ve done it before. “What about my son?” I ask.  
        Gage hesitates. He looks down at the mattress between us, as if ashamed to even make eye contact with me. “You never even sent that message out to him. I mean, do you really even care?”  
        I’m appalled. “Of course I do.” But I don’t suspect Gage could possibly understand how I feel for Shaun. Sure, the sight of him makes me cringe. I resent his very existence, but he’s still…mine. Whether I like it or not, and the child wants his mother around. “He’s my son, Gage. Even if…even if he’s just a…synthetic…version, I…” I’m rambling on. Because the truth is, putting my feelings into words is nearly impossible.  
        “All right, well…let’s bring him out here.”  
        “What?” I ask, stunned.  
        Gage shrugs. “Living in an amusement park? It’s every kid’s dream. He can have the back room. And at least you’ll know he’ll be protected here. Place is built like a god damn fortress.”  
        “I can’t raise my son in a town full of raiders, Gage. This is no place for a child, and I think you know that.”  
        Gage scoffs. “Come on, Scarlett. What are we really talkin’ about here? It’s not like he’s gonna grow up and be some blood-thirsty psychopath.” His words sting. A painful reminder that    Shaun will never grow up, and I think Gage notices. “Shit, boss, I didn’t mean it like that. Just that…you know, the kid’s a synth…”  
        I shake my head. “It’s…okay. I think I know what you meant.”  
        We’re quiet for a long while. I’m not sure what to say. Bringing Shaun to Nuka-World is out of the question, one…because he’s a child. The second reason being that if I send for him, Macready will know I’m alive. And he won’t stop coming for me until I’m free of this place. I know Gage won’t take too kindly to that. And someone’s going to get killed.  
        “Let’s just go, Gage. Let’s just get out of here, me and you.”  
        He laughs. “Where we gonna go? Ain’t no place I can think of that’d take me in.”  
        I grab him and pull him down to the bed with me, and a grin spreads across his face when I kiss him. “We’ll go somewhere no one knows us. Start our own life out there in the wastes. Live on a farm or something. Something overlooking the ocean.”  
        “A farm, huh? Can you really picture me diggin’ ‘round in the dirt?”  
        “I think it’d suit you just fine. And it’s not like we’d have to worry about any raiders coming to hit us up for supplies.”  
        “Heh heh…they wouldn’t know what hit ‘em.”  
        I chuckle. “No, they wouldn’t.” Gage kisses me again and then crawls on top of me to deepen the kiss as he runs his hand down my face. “It’d be perfect, Gage. Just me and you against the world. Think of it now.”  
        He smirks. “Settlin’ down? You’re probably the only woman who could ever convince me to do something like that.” He kisses me again and settles on top of me before pulling inches away from my lips. He stares deep into my eyes, brushing my hair back as he does. “You gonna give me a couple of kids too?” he asks.  
        I feel the strong urge to cry now. Because I don’t think I can do that for him, but it’s not even just that. What we’re talking about, it’ll never happen. And the two of us know that. We weren’t meant for that life despite how bad we might want it from each other. And all we’re talking about is wishful thinking. That maybe if the two of us met in a different kind of world, we could have all those things. “I’ll give you as many as you want,” I say with a tear streaming down my face.  
        Gage lets out a quivering breath against my face, and I’ve never seen him look so sad before. And if I didn’t know him better, I suspect he’d start crying. “You should get going. Mason’ll be expecting you soon.”  
        I sigh, exasperated. “I completely forgot.” The Pack’s goddamn party.  
        “You don’t have to stay long. Just go make an appearance. And I’ll be here waiting for you when you get back. I think the two of us need to talk some more.”  
        I nod. “Okay.” Gage kisses me again and then climbs off of me before excusing himself to the back of the restaurant.

        The nest is swarming with Pack members, and not just the ones inhabiting the theater. Seems all of the members from the park are even hanging around, filling the bleachers and cheering on their favorite opponent in the fighting cages. Two dogs at the moment, but I can only imagine something much worse is coming after Mason’s promise to deliver a really great fight. I have the sneaking suspicion that his opinion of a great fight might be nauseating to me.  
        “Boss,” Mason says as I approach his throne. “You’re late. Here, take a seat,” he says while motioning to the armchair that’s been put next to him.  
        “Hmmm…and here I thought I’d be thrown in with the riff raff,” I say while sitting in the chair next to him. I look to the cages, and watching the two mutts try and kill one another—it’s sickening. I think of Dogmeat, my sweet pooch back in Sanctuary. I’d probably put a bullet in someone’s head if they tried to rope him into a dog fight.  
        “Care for something to drink?” Mason asks.  
        “Uh…”  
        “Here, try the jungle juice,” he says while handing me a cup, and I’m skeptical to even try it. I look inside and sniff, and the smell of vodka is overpowering. But there’s other ingredients inside, and Mason’s watching me intently.  
        “Are you trying to poison me?” I ask coolly.  
        “I’m offended,” he says through a smirk. “If I wanted to kill you, I’d use my bare hands.” He grabs the cup from me and takes a big swig before handing it back, and in an attempt to be polite, I take a sip. But the amount of alcohol takes me off guard, and I start coughing. Mason laughs. “I coulda guessed you were a lightweight.”  
        “What the fuck is in this?” I ask.  
        “It’s a secret recipe. But I wouldn’t recommend drinking more than two if you like your intestines right where they are.” Jesus Christ, I hope he’s kidding.  
        Mason focuses back on the fight, and I do my best to try and act entertained, clapping when members of the pack do. But their howling makes me wince—getting my right down in that uncomfortable part of the ear every time. And Mason’s is just the worst.  
        “So Gage came and talked to you?” I shout over the cheering from the pack members. “I hope you boys were able to play nicely together.”  
        “Yeah, he came by yesterday. Said you’ve got some big plans in store for us. But nothing was official until you made the announcement.” Mason starts howling again, clearly uninterested in talking business. But I become confused with what he’s telling me.  
        “No, he came today…to talk to you about the expansion,” I say to remind him. Because maybe he’s just had one too many jungle juices.  
        “No, he came by yesterday. I think I’d know, boss. I’ve had my hands full all day with putting this shit together for my guys.” It doesn’t make any sense. Because I only agreed to expand today. And surely Gage wouldn’t make a move without my permission. “And what’s any of that matter anyway? We’re moving outward, getting more land. It’s about time we start heading over the mountains anyway.”  
        “Over the mountains?” I ask. But Mason starts cheering, and I look to the cage to see one dog has another by its neck, successfully overtaking the poor creature and bringing it down to the ground. When the mutt yelps, I feel my stomach turn. “Ugh…” I can’t watch anymore. But Mason’s words bang around in my mind, and I’m not sure if I should believe him. Not because I think he’d outright lie about that—or maybe he would to turn me on Gage, something he’s been vocal about me doing anyway.  
        Or maybe he just misunderstood the situation. But still, I can’t shake the feeling that something awful is about to happen, and now all I want to do is go back to the mountain top and talk to Gage. But would he even tell me the truth?  
        After the dog fight’s finished, a few Pack members clear the cage. “You ready for what’s next?” Mason asks with a sly grin on his face.  
        No. Not at all. “What’s next?”  
        Mason laughs. “A gorilla against one of the captives.”  
        “Mason…where the hell did you get a gorilla?” He brings his cup to his lips as if to try and hide the expression on his face. “You know what? I don’t even want to know.” But I don’t think I can stomach that fight. It’s so clear who will win, and I’m not a fan of watching a person being torn to bits.  
        Before the gorilla even makes it to the cage though, something catches my attention. The young girl I saw Gage talking to in the alley the other night, and once again, she’s staring straight at me through the crowd. Her expression pointed and her arms folded across her chest. I feel the urge to go and talk to her. Find out more about her relationship with Gage. Because maybe he isn’t telling me the truth. About anything.  
        Someone crosses in front of the girl, and I fight to keep my eyes on her, but she’s turned away from me and has started walking toward the door leading backstage. “I’ll, uh…I’ll be right back,” I say while handing Mason my cup.  
        “You’re gonna miss the fight!” Mason yells over the crowd’s cheers, but I don’t care much for the ways the Pack chooses to entertain themselves.  
        This Pack girl has information about Gage, information that might be vital for me. Or maybe it’ll just be some sob story about how he broke her heart. Either way, I feel it’ll give me some insight into him. Show me a part of him that maybe he’s not so willing to show me. A part that I’ve started to grow much more suspicious about.  
        I pass the bleachers and look around the corner to the entrance to backstage. Other than a few Pack members hanging around and smoking cigarettes, this area seems much less populated, everyone else finding entertainment in the theater area. So maybe it’s a perfect time to talk to this girl.  
        “Hey boss,” one of the Pack members says as I pass. “Need help finding something?”  
        I shake my head. “No, I’m just…I’m gonna peek inside.” Him and his friend don’t seem suspicious in the least. They just nod their heads, as if letting someone not of their own enter the private dwelling space is of no consequence.  
        Sometimes it pays to be in charge.  
        I enter the backstage area and am not surprised in the least to find a shit show of destruction. The sort of living arrangements I’d expect to find a pack of animals to be living in, not at all clean and organized like the Parlor. But no one is in sight, and other than a few twinkle and emergency lights throughout, the backstage area remains dimly lit.  
        I start walking further backstage, my eyes darting all around the mess and maze of junk before me, all in search of this girl. I pass makeshift beds on the ground, a radio quietly playing Redeye’s voice as he goes on about some bullshit story of his.  
        But a noise at the back of the stage grabs my attention. I slowly make my way back there, and I’m tempted to call out to make my presence known. But then again, I don’t want to scare her off before I even get the chance to talk to her. I guess I kind of feel the need to corner her in some way. Because I assume it’s the only way she’ll talk to me.  
        I make it to the back and peer around the corner, but all I see are dog cages with only a few dogs inside. Some sleeping, some eating, some biting at the bars that keep them confined. Where the hell did she go?  
        But the sound of something clicking right behind my head startles me, and I almost don’t want to look. Slowly, I turn to see what’s happening, and my eyes meet with the bright green eyes of the young girl I’ve seen so many times before. And she’s pointing a pistol right at my face.  
        I suddenly regret coming to find her.


	21. It's All Over But The Crying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett learns a disturbing truth.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my favorite chapter to write, though I get the feeling some of you might hate me after this. Only two chapters left!

        You know that old saying “curiosity killed the cat?” I don’t think I’ve ever really held any stock in that before. Not until finding myself hidden deep in the Pack’s dwelling space with a young raider girl pointing a gun at my face. Maybe I got too cocky—thinking I was invincible around here. Maybe I just assumed the two of us might have a common enemy. Two women setting their differences aside in order to reveal information to one another about the man who may have tricked us both into loving him.  
        But with the pistol in my face and the young girl’s scowl and pointed eyes seeing right into my soul, I realized I might have made a big mistake, coming to find her. And my mind goes completely blank. I’m not sure what to say to her because I know nothing about her nor her plight. Why she might be so angry, and any attempt to calm her just flees from my mind. And now all  I see is my own life flash before my eyes.  
        I wince, waiting for the sound of the gun being fired. Waiting for that brief second of pain before everything goes black, and I leave this world and all my unfinished business behind. This is how I’m going to die, I think to myself. At the hands of a young raider, scorned by me for whatever reason.  
        But I don’t hear the gunshot. And when I open my eyes again, the girl’s scowl turns into a sweet smile, and she lowers the gun. “Sorry, boss. Can’t be too careful when you’re surrounded by raiders.”  
        I’m at a loss. Surely she knew who I was before she approached. And maybe her rational mind told her—this won’t end well for you. Whatever the reason she chooses to lower her weapon, I feel an instant relief come over me, and I take a breath—only now realizing that I stopped breathing as soon as I heard the click of the pistol behind my head.  
        I watch her for a moment, now completely unsure about the things I want to say to her. Because it doesn’t look like she’ll be so helpful. But then she says, “I have something for you.” And my curiosity—once again—gets the better of me.  
        She turns away from me and disappears around the corner, and even though I feel it best to stay put, I don’t want to let her out of my sight. I follow her around the corner. She’s kneeled down in a little alcove next to a dirty sleeping bag, digging into a small footlocker.  
        I enter the alcove and glance around. Clearly her own space—the area not being big enough to accommodate anyone but her. But it’s decorated with twinkle lights, comic books stashed along a small, makeshift shelf she’s hung on her own. And little handmade dolls.  
        I linger in the entrance, and I can’t help but study her while she continues digging through her footlocker. She looks so young, and not at all the type of person I’d suspect ending up as a raider. “How old are you?” I ask.  
        She looks up at me, and I can tell by the look on her face that she’s wondering if she should even say. “I’m eighteen.”  
        Jesus Christ. Ten years younger than me, and nearly twenty years young than Gage. And even though it’s not unheard of for an eighteen-year-old to be a raider—Gage having joined his first gang at sixteen—it’s heartbreaking all the same. That someone so young could have suffered so much to end up in a place like this.  
        She stands and hands me a holotape, and I take it from her, skeptical. “What’s this?”  
        “It’s a holotape.”  
        “I know, but whose? Yours?”  
        She hesitates and then shakes her head. “It’s, uh…it’s Gage’s,” she says, as if ashamed for handing it over to me.  
        I chuckle, unconvinced. “Gage has a holotape?”  
        “Of course. How else is he going to keep all his thoughts and plans for the future organized?” she says, and I already feel sick to my stomach without having even listened to the damn thing.  
        “Why do you have it?”  
        She seems uncomfortable, folding her arms across her chest and avoiding eye contact with me. “I took it from him when he wasn’t around. I was…curious. Wondered if he had anything about me on there. I should have figured he didn’t.” She scoffs, but I can tell that she’s sad. Her eyes gloss over, and she still avoids making eye contact with me. “I just…hadn’t had the chance to put it back. But then I figured, since you’re here, maybe you might find something useful on there.”  
        “Why? What’s on here?” I ask, skeptical about anything she has to say.  
        She shrugs. “Guess you’ll find out.”  
        She sits on her sleeping bag and grabs one of her comic books from the shelf, but I’m not so sure I even want to know what’s on the holotape. I mean, I do. But I’m not so sure I can trust this girl. And how do I even know it’s Gage’s for sure? And what’s her purpose for all this? But mostly, I want to know “How do you know Gage?”  
        She sighs and looks up at me. “Gage and I go way back,” she says, leaving me feeling bewildered. Because she’s hardly old enough to have gone “way back” with a raider. But she senses the confusion on my face. She sets down her comic book and rests her arms on her knees, as if getting comfortable enough to tell such a long story. “Him and his raiders used to come through my family’s farm. They’d hit my parents up for supplies. But Gage, he wasn’t like the others. He was nice. Sweet, actually.” Yep, she’s got it bad too. “I hated him at first, but…over the years, he kept coming back. And I’d start…pestering him, as he called it, about his reasons for doing things like that. Like, why he enjoys causing pain to others.”  
        She doesn’t speak like other raiders, that’s for sure. She sounds educated, and from what I can tell, comes from a normal family. “What did he say?” I ask.  
        “He said…” she sighs and wipes her eyes before tears can even begin to fall. “He said that…he doesn’t enjoy hurting others. That he’s just doing what he has to in order to survive. He went on about how he had it as a kid. His parents being bullied by raiders, and he couldn’t take it anymore.” Yes, I’ve heard the same story. “I started feeling bad for him. And after that night, every time he came through with the other raiders, he and I would talk. And he’d tell me about how great life is being able to do whatever you want. He said…in a world like this, what other choice do we have?”  
        “And you believed him?” I ask.  
        She scoffs. “So did you. It’s why you’re here.”  
        She’s not wrong. “So…why are you here?”  
        “On my seventeenth birthday, the raiders came through. Gage brought me…an old Grognak the Barbarian comic book he came across.” She smiles, but then her smile fades into sadness.  “He made love to me that night in the shed behind my parents’ house. And then he asked me to come with him. Said he couldn’t stand seeing me living this way because it was a constant reminder of his own childhood. His own…weak parents.” I start to feel sick. “He promised me a better life. Promised I’d be taken care of. And now, here I am.”  
        “You joined up with the Pack?”  
        She nods. “He wanted me to join a gang that would put me closer to him. One of the three gangs that agreed to come to Nuka-World so we could be together. But then you came along. And it’s like I never even existed.”  
        I feel so guilty. So guilty and so angry with Gage for the carelessness in which he handled this situation. He convinced a child to leave her home, for what? His own selfish needs? And then when he was done with her, he threw her aside. It’s no wonder she seems so sad. She’s made a lifelong commitment all on the word of someone she loved. Someone who never had it in him to love her in return.  
        I glance around her alcove again, trying to find some shred of something that might convince me her life isn’t so bad when my eyes land on a silver locket hanging from a nail on the wall. I smile and approach the necklace. “This is real nice. Is it yours?”  
        I hear her sniffle. “Yeah.”  
        “Hmmm…I’m surprised no one’s taken it yet.” I grab the heart shaped locket and run my thumb over the surface to remove the dirt and grim when the name MARY etched in the surface appears. “Who’s Mary?”  
        “I’m Mary.” I look over my shoulder at her, stunned. “Well…Missy now. Gage thought it best to change my name after I left home.”  
        “Mary? The…the farmer’s daughter?” She nods, and I feel as though the room starts spinning. The Mary Gage told me died the night she tried to defend her family. Jesus fucking Christ—he lied to me. A lie so massive, and now I can’t wait to see what’s on the holotape.  
        I turn away from her and insert the holotape into my Pipboy. A series of entries appear, all dated. Some going back as far as a year. The most recent one being two weeks ago. But when I click on the first entry, I see that they’re all written entries. “How do I know these are really his?” I ask.  
        She tips her head to the Pipboy. “Read ‘em. You’ll know.”  
        I hesitate to start reading. The first entry, the success of taking over Nuka-Town.

_**We finally did it. After months of planning, we got through the gates of Nuka-World. The traders fought hard to hold their ground, but we were ready for them. And now, they’re our slaves. Can’t lie. It’s always just a little bit funny to see the look on their faces when they realize what’s happening. And I’m sure most would have just preferred death. But they’re ours now. Colter insists on taking a few days to revel in our victory, which might not be a bad idea to allow the men to rest up and heal before moving on to clear the parks. So I’m just sitting here in this giant mountain top, thinking to myself about how all this is going to play out. And I feel like I’m on top of the world. Because things are finally starting to turn around. We’re finally gonna make a place for ourselves in this shitty world.** _

        Nothing too surprising there, though it’s interesting to see things from his perspective. And now I know, without a doubt, this is Gage’s holotape. Though really the only thing that makes me grit my teeth is what he said about enslaving people. Seems he lied about his perspective on the traders—not really considering them slaves and all. But I go to the next entry and scan through. Still, information I already knew. Colter getting lazy, the gangs getting restless. Gage losing a bit of faith.  
I scan through the older ones until finding one dated only a month ago. Before I made it out to Nuka-World, but not long before.

_**This is it. I’ve had it with this shit, and so have the gang bosses. Colter’s only concern seems to be his power armor and the Gauntlet, but the raiders grew bored of that pretty quick. It seems all he cares about is being known as the boss and having people admire him, but he’s not willing to put in the effort. And now he’s avoiding me. Here we’ve been, sitting on our asses for the better part of the year, and we keep losing men any time they try and wander out to one of the parks. Every day that passes with those threats so close to home is another day that we’re living on borrowed time.** _   
_**The gang leaders and I have put a plan into motion though to get Colter out of the way. We use his precious Gauntlet to take him down. Find someone worthy of the fight to come in and take his place, but we haven’t been so lucky with the recent victors. I’m holding out hope someone worthy of our time will come through soon. Because I’m not sure how much longer the bosses are gonna let either of us keep our heads.** _

        The next entry was made not long after. The day I arrived in Nuka-Town.

_**There it is. Colter’s gone. We finally found someone that might be worth the effort. Someone who might be able to help secure the rest of Nuka-World, and once that’s done, the Commonwealth. Name’s Scarlett. Only problem is, she’s the leader of the Minutemen. I can’t lie. When I realized it was her running through the Gauntlet, I almost had Fritsch put her out of her misery. Because there just ain’t no way I can convince her to work with us. Not when she’s based her whole existence on getting rid of our kind. But I became curious about her. She’s tough, put up a good fight. And at least I know she can lead.** _

        The fucking Commonwealth, that son of a bitch. He’s had this planned all along. But I’m too eager to read his next entry to start fuming right now.

_**So I finally convinced Scarlett to stay and clear the parks. Took a lot of finessing, but she’s agreed to help. I had to play the poor, injured puppy-dog card. Try to get her to feel bad for me. But it seems to have worked. The bleeding heart types can’t resist. But she’s sharp. Real smart, asking a lot of questions about what happens after the parks. I can’t just outright tell her. Not now. And we even made a deal that once she’s done getting the rest of Nuka-World, she’ll be gone anyway. So I don’t really see the point in tellin’ her something I know will just make her angry.** _

        I go to the next entry.

_**Shit. I’m not too sure I wanna let this one go, to be honest. She’s a damn good fighter. Organized, knows what the hell she’s doing. And she ain’t lazy. There’s something about her that just lets me know she’s exactly what we need around here, and not just to get Nuka-World back under our control. But if we’re planning on taking a piece of the Commonwealth, this is the woman to have backing us. Hell, I’d rather be fighting next to her than against her.** _

        The next entry.

_**Shit, I might have bitten off more than I can chew here. Scarlett’s definitely the well-to-do type. Might take some serious convincing to stay and get her on board with moving out to the Commonwealth at this point. We cleared out two parks already, and she’s just itching to move out to the third. I love her work ethic already. But now it seems I need to focus my efforts on getting her to trust me. Get her to like me. Maybe try and convince her that not all raiders are so bad. She starts seeing me as a person—her equal, then it might be easier to convince her to do the things I need her to do. But word just came back about an issue with the Pack. So I guess I better go wake the boss up.** _

        And on to the next. I’m thankful to be nearing the end, because every entry breaks my heart a little more. But I have to read all of them. If I don’t, I might not have enough to confront Gage with. Because maybe he regrets what he did, though I’m not even sure that can make it right.

_**God damn. I ain’t gonna lie, after what happened with Mason last night, I’ve been having some real bad thoughts about the boss. She’s sexy. And now might be the best time to move in and make her empathize with me somehow. She defended me last night with the pack leader, so…that’s a good sign. Might not be as hard as I thought to manipulate her into doing what I want. She is a woman, after all.** _

        Son of a bitch.

_**Everything’s going along according to plan. Better, I should say. The boss came to my room last night and started kissing all over me, putting my hands all over her. Yeah, we fucked. And I can’t lie, it was some of the best sex I’ve had in a long time. I need to keep this momentum up. I suggested taking a few days off from clearing the parks just to buy me some more time to get closer to her. Give me more of an opportunity to move in on her—get her to trust me. Seems like she liked that idea, so…here goes nothing.** _

        The next entry.

_**Okay, so that didn’t end up going so well. I never intended on having sex with the boss, honestly. But when she took all her clothes off and had me touching on her—what man would turn that down? And I felt like the most powerful man in the world, fucking a woman like that. But I gave her too much credit. She regrets what we did, and now, so do I. Because it sent me back in my plan of getting close to her. And now she doesn’t even want me around. The dumbass went out to the bottling plant by herself. Almost got herself killed. I kinda wish she would have just died out there to spare me all the bullshit I’m having to deal with now as a result.** _

        And the last entry? It makes no sense. But it was made a couple days after we cleared Safari Adventure, our last park.

_**Fuckin’ hell. I…I don’t even know what to do anymore. But I fucked this one up big time.** _

        I exit out of my Pip-boy and turn to look at Missy. She’s watching me, a bit of hopefulness in her eyes, and I’m not even sure what to say. I’m heartbroken, to say the least. And I feel foolish for having ever let myself fall for Gage. For allowing myself to think he was anything but a typical raider.  
        No, not typical. Much smarter than most. Smarter than myself, it would seem. His entire plan was to manipulate me. Make me fall for him so I’d do anything he asked of me. And he almost achieved that goal. He would have, had it not been for his scorned lover sitting in front of me. And then I become suspicious of why she’s helping me. “Why did you give me this?”  
        She’s quiet for a long time, considering if she should even tell me, I’m sure. But when her eyes look deep into mine, a sort of confidence appears that I haven’t seen inside of her before.   “Because I want you gone.”  
        And gone I shall be. The level of hurt and betrayal I feel, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Because I’ve never felt it to this extent b. And now, more than ever, I can’t wait to return to Sanctuary Hills even if it feels like my heart is being ripped from my chest and torn apart right in front of my eyes.  
        I leave the nest after that, not even bothering with telling Mason goodbye or even thanking him for the invitation. Because really, I don’t want to attract any attention to myself. If I’m planning on leaving Nuka-World, now is the perfect time. When all the Pack members are tied up in the nest and only traders surround the market area.  
        But I don’t have my guns. I don’t have any ammo, any stimpaks, and it’s night. Traveling at night with a companion is dangerous enough, but alone? I stop walking and lean on the wall of the market, suddenly feeling as though I can’t catch my breath. And my eyes water unmercifully, obscuring my vision even more than the darkened sky. What the hell do I do? I’m concerned by devastation is clouding my better judgement much more than my love for Porter Gage. That son of a bitch.  
        I start to turn toward the Mountain. But I can’t fucking face him. Because what am I going to say? No, I need to leave. As stupid as it is to waltz out of Nuka-World in the dead of night unarmed, I might not get another opportunity like this. Especially if Gage knows I’ve figured him out.  
        I start walking toward the exit again, avoiding eye contact with anyone I pass. As if they might possibly be able to read my mind if I look them in the eye. I round the corner of the market. The Nuka-World theme song becomes slightly detectable the closer I get to the main gate, and with each step I take, I feel as though a weight is being lifted off my shoulders. Even if my chest still feels like it’s collapsing in on me.  
        “Hey, boss?”  
        I feel as though my heart stops beating. I freeze at the sound of Gage’s voice coming from behind me. My breath quivers, and I almost start crying right then and there. I slowly turn to look at him. Seems he was lingering around the market, talking with a caravaner I’ve never seen before. But now, his attention is completely focused on me. And he looks concerned as all get out.  
        “Gage…” I exhale heavily.  
        He moves toward me. A slight grin spreads across his face, but his eye is narrowed. He’s looking at me as though I have an extra limb growing out of me. “Where you wanderin’ off to?” he asks.  
        “I, uh…I…I don’t know. I was just…taking a walk. Getting some…fresh air.”  
        “Uh oh. Did Mason give ya the jungle juice?” he asks through a smirk.  
        I laugh, uncomfortable. “Yeah…no, that’s not…I’m fine, I just…”  
        “You ready to head home now?” he asks, a wry smile on his face. Yes, I most certainly am ready to head home. But not with him. Not back to the mountain top. But words fail me, and I only nod.  
        He brings his hand to the small of my back, and even that smallest touch sends chills down my spine. And while escorting me away from the gate—away from my freedom—I can’t help but look over my shoulder toward the darkness of the wasteland. Because I truly feel that was my only chance to get away.  
        I hardly speak on the walk back to the mountain top, but Gage keeps asking questions about the night. Asking if I had fun, if Mason was on his best behavior. What fights I got to see. I keep my answers short, mostly because I don’t like lying—unlike some people—but also, the longer I’m around him, conversing with him, the harder it is to keep my mouth shut about everything I know about him.  
        We reach the mountain top, and I enter the room and move to the counter. I keep my back to him while removing my jacket—my mind racing with some sort of plan. Something that’ll make my escape easier. Maybe I could send him on an errand? But it’s late, and he’ll just put it off until tomorrow anyway. “You tired?” Gage grumbles from behind me.  
        I sigh. “Yes. I’m very tired,” I say. Hoping to maybe detract any sort of attempt he might try at initiating something between the two of us.  
        “You seem agitated. Somethin’ happen tonight?” I don’t know how to respond. I mean, Christ, even the sound of his voice makes me want to start crying. So I keep my back to him and bury my face in my hands. I’m shaking. With fear, with anger, with sadness. A quivering breath escapes me, and Gage hears. He comes up behind me. “Hey now,” he says and brings his arms around me. And just that small, simple gesture is enough to push me over the edge.  
        I shove him away. “Don’t…” I begin, a little too aggressive, but I can’t believe I actually shoved him. I look at him, his perplexed expression, and all I can do is bring my hands to my mouth and try and muffle a cry. Because this is happening. Tonight. And there’s no getting out of it.  
        “What the hell’s that about?” he mutters. “What’s goin’ on with you?”  
        I hang my head and fold my arms across my chest. The sort of position one puts themselves in to infer that they don’t want to be touched. “I talked to Missy tonight.”  
        Gage sighs. “Oh, Christ. Here we go. And why’d you go and do that?”  
        “Because I felt like you were keeping something from me.”  
        “So you go and ask some dumb raider girl with a crush? Don’t seem like the smartest move, Scarlett. If you think I’m hiding something from you, just come out and say it,” he snaps, and I don’t even know where to begin.  
        “Mason, Gage. I talked to Mason.” I finally look at him, but he’s fuming. I have yet to back him into a corner though. I can tell by the expression on his face. “He said that you came and talked to him about the expansion…yesterday. Which is fucking strange because…I never even agreed to it until today.”  
        “This what you’re so pissed about? Me buying you some time with the gang bosses?”  
        I laugh. “Oh, is that what you were doing?”  
        “Yeah, it is. They kept comin’ to me, askin’ me what the plan was. When we were gonna make the next move. Gettin’ all antsy, so I told them you had plans to expand to the land surrounding Nuka-World. Told them to keep it quiet because it wasn’t official until you made the announcement yourself.” Gage scoffs. “Jesus, Scarlett, I was gonna tell you all about it, but…you just happened to come to me first.”  
        Convenient. But it doesn’t even begin to cover all the shit I have against him. “Why’d you tell me Mary died?”  
        “What?” he snaps, as if his tone might make me reconsider my question.  
        “Mary, Gage! Missy? You told me she died at the hands of a raider. Not that you fucking recruited her to join your sick, twisted operation. And for what? So you could fuck her whenever you wanted?”  
        “Hey now, don’t start with that shit. You were married before me. Had a son and everything…”  
        “You’re missing the point, Gage,” I say slowly and firmly. Fucking men. Always taking everything so literally. “You told me she died. Not that you manipulated her into becoming a raider.”  
        “I didn’t manipulate her. And if she told you that, she’s even more fucked up than I thought. That girl was ready to leave her whole life behind for me. She said she wanted what I had, and I gave it to her because I knew if she stayed in that little shit-hole settlement, she’d wind up dead.”  
        “If that’s the truth…then why did you lie?”  
        He hesitates. But there’s a look of desperation to him. And slowly, I’m getting him to back into that corner. “What was I supposed to tell ya? You asked me if I ever cared about anyone before, and yeah, I did care about her. Because she reminded me of myself at that age. But that’s all it was, Scarlett. And how can I tell you, little miss perfect, the general of the Minutemen, that I’m the reason this girl up and left her family to become a raider? Would you ever have respected me again?”  
        “You unimaginable bastard. You took her away from her family and broke her fucking heart. You promised her the world and gave her…nothing.”  
        “I gave her a family. One that’s always gonna have her back, always gonna be lookin’ out for her. Never gonna let anything happen to her. It’s more than I can say for what her parents ever did for her.”  
        “She’s in love with you,” I say, astounded by him.  
        “Well that’s too fuckin’ bad for her, isn’t it?” he says, hateful and angry.  
        And now, I can’t keep from crying. His cold, callus behavior makes me sick, and I can’t help but feel that I’m the same as Missy. Just a means to an end—him pretending in every aspect with me for his own selfish gain. “How can you be so cruel?”  
        “Yeah, I’m a fuckin’ asshole. I’ll admit it. But I don’t regret what I did. That girl’s still alive because of me. I owe her nothing. And I’m not gonna feel bad about what I have with you all because her precious feelings got hurt.”  
        But I’m not buying it. Any of it. “You lied to her. Manipulated her. Made her fall in love with you to get what you wanted out of her…”  
        “Enough with that shit…” he says while waving his hand to me. As if to dismiss me and any reason I have to be upset.  
        “And now you’ve gone and done the same thing to me,” I say, gathering his undivided attention once more.  
        “What?” he asks, feigning confusion. But I pull the holotape from my pocket and toss it at him, and he scrambles to catch it in time. I watch him study the thing, but his expression doesn’t change. Not in the way one’s expression should when caught in a lie. “What the fuck is this?” he asks.  
        “Your holotape.”  
        He’s skeptical, and a long pause follows my response. But he takes a step toward me, and I feel my body become tense. I wish I would have grabbed a gun before this conversation. “I don’t have a holotape…”  
        “Ah, that’s bullshit. There are things on there that only the two of us know. Details about us, the things we talked about.” And finally, that deer in the headlights expression comes out of him. And it’s enough to break my heart all over again. I force a laugh while wiping a tear from my face. “And wouldn’t you know it? Your…plan to take over the Commonwealth was mentioned a number of times as well.”  
        “Scarlett…”  
        “Word of advice, Gage. If there’s something you don’t want someone to know, don’t put it in writing.” I go to move past him to reach the area where my bed and trunk holding all my guns are located. “Get out,” I say as I pass, but Gage grabs my arm.  
        “Can we talk…”  
        I jerk my arm away from him and shove him. “Don’t touch me. You’ll never touch me again.” Sure, he seems hurt. But it’s all an act. Everything about him, everything he’s ever told me. And my love for him, it’s turned into something ugly. And I never thought I could hate someone so much in my life. “Now get out or I’ll have you removed.”  
        He looks to the ground for a moment and then sniffles before letting out a laugh. “I live here, Scarlett. You can’t have me removed.”  
        “Well then you’d better get your ass to the back of the restaurant real fucking fast. Because I’m still in charge around here, and right now, I want nothing more than to watch you suffer.” He seems astounded by me. And that frown on his face, the sadness in his eye he does so well to turn off and on at the drop of a hat comes flying out of him in full force. “Good thing I’m not a blood-thirsty raider, huh?” I turn away from him and start making my way to my sleeping area again. “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.”  
        I sit on the edge of my bed and start pulling off my boots. Doing whatever I can to appear “normal.” As if I have no plans whatsoever to leave Nuka-World tonight.  
        “I guess that explains why you were headed for the gate earlier,” Gage says, and I feel my breath catch in my throat. “Scarlett? You tryin’ to leave here? Because I don’t think that’s really an option for you anymore, sorry to say.” But I say nothing to him. Hell, the only thing I have the courage to do is keep my back to him and further put on the act that I’m getting ready for bed. And only when I hear the doors slam shut behind Gage, do I really allow myself to breathe and focus.  
        I need to hurry. No telling when he’ll come storming back in here, demanding to talk. Or worse, with the means to kill me. I put my boots back on and string my belt around my jacket. I attach my knife to my thigh, my pistol. I sling my rifle and shotgun over my back and stuff as much ammo as I can in the compartments along my belt. But that’s when I hear the sound of doors slamming shut from below.  
        I run to the lift and lean over the side to see Gage pacing back and forth, smoking a cigarette. “Shit,” I curse while moving back into the room. I lower myself onto one of the barstools, all the while keeping my eyes toward the lift, listening for any signs that he’s come back inside. But thirty minutes go by, and I hear nothing.  
        I move to the lift again and look over the side. Gage remains down below, leaning on one of the walls like he’s done so many nights before. And it’s only then I realize that he’s keeping watch. Guarding the exits—assuring I don’t leave. But he can’t stand guard forever. And I can wait all night if I have to.

        I do just that. Wait all night for my opportunity to leave, and by the time the sun is high in the sky and I’m confident that I can leave the mountain top without causing any suspicion from anyone who might see, I’m ready to go. I move to the lift and peer over the side, pleased to see that Gage is no longer standing below. So now’s my chance. My plan is to sneak out the exit to the left of the mountain top, and if anyone asks where I’m going, I’ll just tell them I’m scouting the surrounding area for the expansion. If I don’t return, they’ll assume me for dead.  
        The perfect plan. So long as I can make it out before I cross Gage’s path. Though after being on guard all night, I assume he’s probably sleeping. I press the button on the lift the bring me down, and as soon as I hit ground level, I turn right and make my way toward the exit of the park.  
        But two Operators approaching me put me on edge. Mostly because it’s only Pack members this close to the mountain. I try to ignore them, pretend I’m thinking about more important things. But they stop right in front of me. And I look at them, suspicious.  
        “Hey, boss. We heading out?”  
        I hesitate to speak. “Uh…I’m heading out. I suppose you’re doing…whatever Operators do in their free time.”  
        “We’ve been given strict orders to accompany you wherever you go. You’ll be safe with us, you can be sure of that.”  
        “I’m sorry, safe with you?”  
        “Gage informed the Operators of a threat of an assassination attempt this morning. Nothing’s gonna happen to you on our watch.”  
        That clever little son of a bitch. Though I shouldn’t be surprised, and I can only assume he’d tell such a lie to save his own ass. Because if the bosses knew the truth, he’d be a dead man. But likely, so would I. “I don’t…need an escort. I’m just…makin’ my rounds,” I say nonchalantly while moving past them to get to the exit, but they continue to follow. “Hey,” I say while turning to them. “Stop following me.”  
        They seem conflicted, poor guys. “Sorry, boss. We can't. The order came down from Gage through William and Mags.”  
        I’m about to lose my shit, to be perfectly honest. “I’m still in charge here.”  
        “Of course, Overboss. And if there’s anything you need, you just let us know.”  
        Because of my two very uninvited guests, I have to change course and make my way out to the parks to check in with all my favorite people. Making my rounds, as I told my two escorts, and by the time we return to Fizztop Mountain, it’s late in the afternoon, and Gage is waiting by the entrance below. And I want nothing more than to cause him pain.  
        “How’d it go, boss?” he asks, but I don’t answer as I step onto the lift. “Y’all can head back to the Parlor. I’ll take it from here.” But I press the button before Gage has the chance to step on.   Though I should have figured, he’s quick to make it upstairs. Not quick enough to reach the doors before I tie them shut.  
        He sighs from outside the door. “You can’t avoid me forever, Scarlett. You’re gonna have to talk to me eventually.” But I don’t even respond to that. And just like the night before, Gage stands guard at the base of the mountain. All through the night until the early morning when I try and leave again, and two new Operators are waiting to escort me.  
        “It’s such a pleasure to accompany you, boss.”  
        “I’m excited to see the Overboss in action.” But I ignore them for the most part. Really, I’m looking for the perfect opportunity to slip away from them. But the goddamn Operators are too good at what they do, which is why I assume Gage chose them over the Pack. It hits me really hard in the moment when I see the amount of guards at each entrance and exit to the park though.   I’m a prisoner now.  
        I try to use the Operators to get a message out to the Commonwealth. An SOS of sorts, though cleverly disguised in a way that only Macready would understand. But Mags and William are of no help. “Sorry, Overboss. Gage has put a strict limitation on the number of messages incoming and outgoing,” William says.  
        “This one’s important. It…has to do with the expansion.”  
        “Then why use us for it? I’m sure Gage will happily oblige your request if it’s a business operation,” Mags says.  
        I need to think of something. I sigh, frustrated. “Because I can’t find Gage.”  
        “Hmm. Last I saw, he was over by the market,” Mags says.  
        I avoid the market.  
        But even the next day, I try my hand with Mason. “Sorry, boss. No can do. You wanna send a message out, use your little secretary.”  
        I am so beyond fed up with feeling like I’m one of their captives. Hell, I am. The only thing I’m missing is the slave collar, and now I’m growing suspicious of my own safety. Because judging by the reactions of the gang bosses, they might know exactly what’s going on. And maybe they’re just waiting for me to start singing a different tune before deciding to put me down. Like Colter.  
        “What exactly did Gage tell you?” I ask Mason.  
        “Something about an assassination threat. Some shit like that. I don’t know. Don’t really care. But Gage says no messages without his permission, so…gotta listen.”  
        “Well, you know what it sounds like to me?”  
        “What’s that?”  
        “It sounds like Gage is now the Overboss. So what am I still doing here,” I snap, and I say it more as an accusation than anything, and Mason is quick to realize that my question is rhetorical. Because he laughs.  
        “You say it like you only just realized he’s been in charge this whole time.” Mason shrugs and looks toward the cages where two dogs begin to fight. “I tried to warn ya, boss.”  
        True, Mason did try to warn me. But I refused to listen. Because I loved Gage. I still love him, and every time I see him, it breaks my heart. It destroys me knowing that all I ever was to him was a way to get his foot in the Commonwealth and wreck everything I’ve built since coming back to this shitty world.  
        I’m escorted back to the mountain at nightfall only to find two more Operators on guard duty at the entrance of my quarters. A strange sight because the past few nights, Gage has been standing guard. But I don’t question them while going up the lift. And when reaching my quarters, I notice that the doors leading to the back of the restaurant—the only thing separating Gage and I—have been removed from their hinges.  
        “Son of a…Gage!” I yell while removing my jacket and tossing it to the ground. I storm down the hallway leading to his quarters. “Gage!” I shout, and when I enter the room, I see him sitting at the table with a bottle of vodka in front of him, smoking a cigarette.  
        He’s leaning back in his chair, feet kicked up on the table. No armor, and I notice that his face is red and his eye is hazy. But he smirks at me. “Well hey there, boss. What can I do for you?”  
        “Where’s the goddamn door?”  
        He takes a long drag of his cigarette before removing his feet from the table to lean forward and ash his cigarette. “I had it taken off. Peace of mind, mostly. Can’t shut me out forever, you know.”  
        I’m disgusted by him. “You’ve been drinking.”  
        He points to me. “Yes I have. Dipped into your…stash. Hope you don’t mind.”  
        “I thought you don’t drink. Dulls the senses, remember?”  
        “Yep. It does,” he says while leaning forward to put out his cigarette completely. “But what’s that you said? That’s the basis of its appeal? Yeah, that sounds right…”  
        “Christ, you’re drunk,” I groan.  
        “Not yet, but…I’m gettin’ there,” he says and then grabs the bottle of vodka to pour more into his glass. “Come, have a drink with me.”  
        I scoff. “You’ve had enough,” but he only laughs. I watch him for a moment, as if the longer I watch him, the easier it will be to read his mind.  
        Gage kicks out the chair next to him. “Sit down,” he demands, and I hesitate to move toward him. When I lower myself in the chair, I sit as close to the edge as possible to create as much distance between the two of us as I can. But Gage glances at me and then grabs the chair to pull it closer. He grabs an empty cup and fills it with vodka to give to me. “To the Overboss’ health,” he says while holding his cup up to me.  
        I don’t toast him. I set my cup aside and stare at him, and without saying a word, I seem to weaken him enough to detract his gaze. But he grabs another cigarette and lights it up before taking a long drag. He offers me one, but I decline. “When’s this gonna end, Gage? You can’t keep me prisoner forever.”  
        He leans away from me, studying me with a smirk on his face while exhaling a cloud of smoke in my direction. “I can’t let you leave now. It’s night. You’ll be ripped to shreds by a hungry Yao Guai or…shit, what’re they called again? Deathclaw…”  
        “Gage,” I say quietly, tenderly. Hoping that I can appeal to his better nature, if that part of him even truly exists.  
        “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, Scar. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep.” He takes another drag through a stupid grin. He starts to laugh again, and the sound makes my stomach turn. How he can find amusement through my pain breaks me even more than before, and I can’t stand to be around him. I feel my breath quiver, and I refuse to let him see me cry. I stand to make my way out of the room. “What, you leavin? You ain’t even had nothin’ to drink!”  
        “Fuck you,” I say through gritted teeth, and I don’t dare turn back to him.  
        “Scarlett…” I hear his chair scoot out from under him. I hear him come up behind me, and as much as I want to run from him, the fucker had my door removed. So where the fuck can I really go? He grabs my arm, and I try to pull away, but he’s too strong. “I’m sorry, baby, just come back and have a drink with me,” he says, slurring his words as he does. His face is inches away from mine, and I smell the vodka on his breath.  
        I try to pull away from him again, but he’s holding me against him. Pressing his forehead against mine, forcing me to face him while tears stream down my face. “Please let me go,” I say.  
        He exhales heavily against me and swallows hard. “Nah, I ain’t…I ain’t ever gonna let you go, Scarlett.” He steps every closer to me and brings his hand to the side of my face, and as much as I love being this close to him, my heart can’t bear it. “You know all that shit you read…I wrote it before I really…before I really got to know ya.” He shakes his head. “But I didn’t lie, Scarlett. About the things I said to ya…the things I told you I felt about ya…that wasn’t a lie.” His face is red hot against mine, and when he lets out a quivering breath against me, I notice that he’s the much more vulnerable one between the two of us. Because it seems as though he’s going to start crying.  
        And I don’t think Gage could fake that even if he wanted to. “Gage…”  
        “I fucked up, Scarlett. And…I need you to forgive me, all right? I need you to forgive me, and let’s just…put it behind us and move on. Because it’s me and you against the world, right? And…and if we just move past this, we’ll have everything, Scarlett. Everything we could ever want…”  
        “Yes, by destroying everything I’ve built. You selfish asshole,” I cry while shoving him back, and his drunkenness throws him off balance as he hits the wall behind him, giving me the perfect opportunity to head back to my room.  
        “You don’t own the fuckin’ Commonwealth!” he yells. “We’re just as entitled to it as anyone else! You hear me?” he yells, but I don’t respond while walking into my room, leaving him broken in the hallway. “Scarlett!” he yells louder than I’ve ever heard before, but I won’t play in to his drunken tantrum, which is exactly what this is. A result of having too much to drink and being burdened by the shitty mistakes he’s made. I know because he went from laughing, to crying, to yelling all within a matter of minutes.  
        I can’t sleep though. Mostly because I’m afraid Gage will come storming in in a drunken rage trying to kill me. But other than that, he’s planted an idea in my mind. No, the Commonwealth doesn’t belong to me as much as the Minutemen try to convince me otherwise. And these raiders have gone their whole lives being told they can’t have something everyone else has. Which is why I assume they became raiders.  
        Perhaps I’m a driving factor of their aggression and that’s why they’re so desperate to have me on their side. They need me to make it okay for them. And if I play ball, they might start trusting me enough to give me my freedom again. I just have to play their game.


	22. One More Tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett tries to regain the trust of the gang leaders and Gage.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit sexual language/Explicit sexual content
> 
> If you're confused about something in this chapter, I do ask that you wait until the last chapter is posted to ask. If I don't clear things up for you then, I welcome your questions.

        I call a meeting with the gang leaders the next day to be held at the Parlor with promises of good things to come, and Mason arrives just in time. Mags and William have ordered the Operators to leave the premises to give us a bit of privacy in the main portion of the Parlor, and when all three of them are seated and waiting for me to begin, I feel as though I can’t breathe.  Because what I’m about to offer them, I fear it will destroy me.  
        “I’ve been thinking long and hard about this expansion. And after a lot of time and consideration…” I hear the doors to the Parlor open, breaking me of my train of thought. And when Gage enters looking rather disheveled, I struggle to focus once more. Because mostly, I want to ask him to leave. He has no right to be here, in my mind, but at the risk of causing a scene and making myself look weaker than I already have, I bite my tongue. “I, uh…I’ve decided that we shouldn’t waste our…valuable time and resources worrying about the land surrounding Nuka-World. We need to move on the Commonwealth. I think that…now would be the best time, or…not right now, but…it needs to be the main priority.”  
        I look to all of them. Mason is grinning like a madman, nodding his head in agreement while William and Mags stare at me, skeptical, it seems. And then as much as I try to fight it, I look at Gage. Not a shred of malice or disappointment on his face—not what I’ve been seeing lately. Instead, appreciation and somewhat disbelief.  
        “I apologize for the skepticism, Overboss,” Mags begins. “But…what exactly is it that gave you this sudden change of heart? According to Gage, you’ve been prolonging this process for quite some time now.” Fucking Judas, and I can’t help but shoot him a hateful stare.  
        “Hey now, I never said she was dragging her feet. Just that she wanted to take her time, wait for the right moment,” Gage says. “It’s a smart move when the Commonwealth’s crawling with Minutemen.”  
        “Yeah, about that,” Mason begins, and I brace myself for anything they might throw my way. “We move into the Commonwealth, it’s your men we’ll be fighting. So what do you plan on doing about that, Overboss? How can we trust that you won’t turn on us?”  
        “You accepted me as your Overboss before. Why all this suspicion now?”  
        “We don’t mean any disrespect, boss. We just want to be sure you have the good of our gangs in mind. Surely you can understand that as a leader,” Mags says.  
        “Yes, of course. Which brings me to my next point. Gage…had a very interesting point of view last night. One I never even considered before,” I say, and again, I can’t resist looking up at him. His eye softens, a bit of hope shining through. “We…the Minutemen, I mean…we don’t own the Commonwealth. It’s just as much yours as it is ours. And if you’re looking to try and make a piece of that home, it’s not my place to say no. We don’t kill every raider we come across. We kill those that have malicious intent. Ones that target our settlements specifically. But with the  Disciples being gone, and…after getting to know all of you and the operations of your gangs, I can say with confidence…as the general of the Minutemen that…I’m not afraid to have your  people out there amongst the rest of the population.”  
        “So this is the general of the Minutemen we’re talking to?” William says, unimpressed. “You wanna send us back our Overboss?”  
        I clear my throat. A nervous habit because I’m shaken right now. “I’m still your Overboss. But I think this is a very…good opportunity we have here, me being an ambassador, so to speak.  Look, I know the Commonwealth. I know the best places to set up outposts for our gangs. Which ones will be targeted by the Minutemen, which areas you’ll be more successful in doing… whatever it is you plan on doing. But we have to be smart about this. The settlements under the Minutemen’s protection, for example, can’t be touched. Simply because we’ve done well to set  up defenses there.”  
        “Hey, why don’t you just tell your little Minutemen to stand down? I mean, you are the general. You can tell them to shove off whenever you choose,” Mason says.  
        I close my eyes to avoid openly rolling them at him and then shake my head. “The Minutemen’s orders stand whether I’m there to give them or not.” But they don’t seem convinced. “Look, you want a piece of the Commonwealth or not?”  
        “Of course we do. We just want to be sure you’re really here to help us,” Mags says.  
        “Yeah. Help us, not bury us,” William follows up.  
        “That’s precisely why I’m telling you these things.” I remove a sheet of paper from my jacket pocket and toss it on the table. “I’ve made a list of settlements that might be a good option for us to choose as our outposts. They’re small with room to build, and they’re not under the protection of any organization. We’ll convince the settlers to leave their land. I’ll send them to one of the Minutemen’s settlements. We all win.”  
        Mags looks over the list before handing it to William, and Mason tries looking over the table. “I don’t even know where half these settlements are,” William gripes.  
        “I have a…shit,” I curse to myself.  
        “Something the matter?” Mags asks.  
        “I circled them on the map, but…I forgot it back in the mountain top.”  
        Yes, they certainly seem unimpressed, and so am I. I can barely keep myself together here. “I can go get it for you, boss,” Gage says. He takes a step closer to me, and I notice how eager he seems to help in any way he can. “You need anything else?”  
        I hesitate to speak. “N…no. Just the…just the map.”  
        Gage nods to me, a weak smile on his face before exiting the room. “It seems as though you’re trying to hide our existence out there,” Mags says, pulling me back into the moment. “I won’t know for sure until I see this…map of yours, but the settlements you’ve listed…the way you speak about them…it seems like you want to stuff us away in some dark, dingy corner of the  Commonwealth where no one would ever find us.”  
        I shake my head. “Not at all.”  
        “Yeah, we wanna be heard, boss. The Commonwealth’s gotta know we’re there,” Mason says.  
        I let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, I understand. And I have every intention of making sure we get the notoriety we deserve. But you have to work with me here. It’s rather unfortunate that  Colter wasted so much of your time here in Nuka-Town because while he was sitting on his ass, I was busy out there building up these settlements and the Minutemen. There’s not a settlement under our control that doesn’t house some heavy artillery. And the Minutemen have expanded through every reach of the Commonwealth. I’m simply trying to position us somewhere that won’t immediately put them on threat con delta. Because then, it’ll be an all-out war. And even though our raiders are great fighters, we all know that we won’t have the numbers we need in the  Commonwealth for at least a few months.”  
        Mason shrugs and glances across the table to Mags. “She’s right.”  
        Mags raises her hand to Mason, as if to dismiss him. “Very well, boss. Let’s have a look at this map of yours and start coming up with a plan. I’m pleased to say that at least we have your blessing now.”  
        “Yeah, so long as you don’t bail on us in the middle of things,” William says.  
        “Rest assured, I will be here holding your hand the entire time. And I won’t make a move that will put you or your gangs in danger. Trust me, I know how the Minutemen think. Everything’s…everything’s going to be fine.”  
        At least I hope so. I can’t be certain, but one thing I notice after leaving the Parlor, my Operator escorts no longer follow me. Gage does, but he lingers behind, and I’m not sure if he’s truly following me or if we’re both just going to the same place. But the next day, I no longer have escorts waiting for me. At least, no Operator escorts.  
        “Morning, boss,” Gage says as the lift comes to a stop.  
        I sigh and step off the lift to start making my way toward the market. “You don’t need to follow me around, Gage. I’m just going to the market.”  
        “Ain’t no different than how we used to operate before. Don’t know why you’re makin’ a big deal out of it now,” he mutters while staying a few paces behind me.  
        “Because you…” Again, I fight the urge to cry. Something I’ve been having to do every time I see him acting like nothing ever happened. “You break my heart every time I see you. And I just need some space.”  
        “Oh, come on, now. You know I’m still crazy about ya.” I scoff and continue walking along to the market. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Scarlett. I still want you as much as I ever did.”  
        I choose not to respond as I’m growing weary of this conversation. Gage trying to backtrack, trying to make things okay between us. Though his effort over the last few days leads me to believe he’s being genuine when he says these things to me, the true side of Gage that I’ve exposed is one I cannot ignore, not matter how much I still care about him.  
        He runs to catch up with me, and when I feel his hand on my arm, I stop to give him my attention. Mostly because I don’t want the raiders moving around us to get suspicious in any way.     Another attempt to refrain from causing a scene. “Look, I know you’re angry. And you have every right to be. But I made all those plans with Colter before I even knew you. Already promised  moving into the Commonwealth to the gangs over a year ago.” His expression softens, and I notice in that moment just how burdened he seems. “I’ve been trying to make it right, Scarlett. Since  that time we…” A passing Operator silences him momentarily. “Since after clearing Safari Adventure. But the gangs, they…they’re deadest on this move. Have been for a while, and I don’t think  there’s anything I can say to change their minds.” I feel for him. Briefly. He lets out an uncomfortable laugh. “I mean, you saw what happened with Nisha after she found out this isn’t what you  wanted.”  
        Now I’m suspicious again. “What is this? Another attempt to manipulate me?”  
        “No, boss…I just wanted to…”  
        “You’re holding me prisoner here, Gage. Forcing me to move in on the Commonwealth. Do you really think there’s anything you can say to make this right?”  
        He seems hurt. “I’m not forcing you to do anything. And you’re not our prisoner…”  
        “You’ve backed me into a corner. Forced my hand on this whole Commonwealth thing. And as much as you try and deny it to yourself, I am your prisoner. You won’t let me leave. You won’t  even let me send a message to the Commonwealth.”  
        “Not until I know you’re really on board with this. But I’m not trying to make you feel like our slave. You’ve got a lot of information on us, and until I know you’re behind us, it’s not smart to let you leave. Next thing I know, I’ll have an army of Minutemen crashing through the gates.” He’s quiet for a moment. Ashamed to look at me, it seems. As if he only just realized that I am their prisoner. “I’m sorry if that makes you feel like a captive. But you gotta understand where I’m comin’ from.”  
        I nod. “Sure, I do. But that doesn’t mean I have to forgive you for putting me here.” He opens his mouth to speak, but I turn away from him and continue along the way to the market. And a part of me grew hopeful that after hearing what I had to say, Gage would give me some space. That maybe he’d try and make it seem less that I was being guarded if even to make things amicable between us.  
        But he continues to follow me everywhere. The market, back to the mountain top, the parks. Keeps saying that we’re partners, and he’s got my back. But I know better. He’s making sure I don’t run. And although promising the Commonwealth to the gang bosses seem to have bought me some good faith, Gage is still skeptical of me. Because every time I try and lose him in the crowds of raiders, my attempts are futile.  
        “Stop following me, Gage,” I say sternly while leaving Dry Rock to make my way to Galactic Zone.  
        “I’m lookin’ out for you. There’s alotta shit out here that wants us dead.”  
        “I can take care of myself.”  
        “Shit, I know you can. But we don’t do things solo anymore, remember?” I roll my eyes and keep a brisk pace toward Galactic Zone. “Hell, it’s either me or the Operators again.”  
        “So send the Operators.”  
        “Don’t be like that, boss.”  
        But it’s hard not to be. And Gage is unrelenting. In between following me around everywhere, he does what he can to mend our broken relationship. Convincing me—practically forcing me—to ride the coaster in Nuka-Galaxy, his excuse being, “We put all this work into gettin’ it up and running. Might as well enjoy it.”  
        And then taking me to see the view on top of Starport Nuka, which, I have to admit, takes my breath away. Gage laughs. “And you didn’t want to come up here.”  
        I choose to ignore him while standing on the railing and leaning my forehead against the glass that paints an incredible view of Nuka-World and the area surrounding. I can see the transit station from way up here, and the Gauntlet.  
        “I don’t know if you should be leanin’ on that glass. Might not be as sturdy as it once was,” he says, but falling to my death seems a merciful fate. “Hey, boss?”  
        “What?” I groan while looking toward the little specks of Operators below.  
        “Can I ask you somethin’?”  
        “No.”  
        “You remember when…we were talkin’ about gettin’ outta here and…settin’ up somewhere out in the Commonwealth? Just me and you?” I lean up from the glass and look over my shoulder to him. “Where were you thinkin’ of going?” I hesitate to speak, and Gage shifts uncomfortably, looking down at the ground as he does. “Cause…I been thinkin’ about it, and…maybe when we get the gangs all set up, we could do that. Head outta here, just me and you.”  
        I look out to the view again to hide the burning of my eyes from tears I don’t want to fall. I’ve wasted too many on this man. “It was just wishful thinking, Gage. You and I both know that’s never going to happen.”  
        He’s quiet for a moment. “It could happen? If that’s what…I mean, if that’s what you wanted to do, I’d…be happy to go with ya.”  
        “No.” I wince, the burning of my eyes becoming too intense to fight for much longer. “No, it can’t happen. You know it, and I know it.”  
        I hear him sigh. “You really are done with me, ain’t ya?”  
        I don’t respond, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because in the deepest, furthest corner of my mind—the part I’ll never admit to harboring out loud—I know that if I say yes then it’ll be all over. Officially, even if I convinced myself that it already was. But I loathe myself in this moment. Because it’s in this moment that I realize how much I still love him. And how badly I wish things could be different.  
        I toss and turn all night, my mind consumed with everything that’s happening. The expansion, things between Gage and I. And as much as I’ve tried to put on a brave face, I still can’t deny the fact that I’m devastated about how things ended between us. Because every time I look at him, I want to cry. Every time I see him looking at me, I want nothing more than to run to him, hold him, kiss him. All the things I feel he’s no longer worthy of, I still so badly want to give it to him. And it’s not fucking fair.  
        The worst part about all this is, despite Gage having found his answer to his question in my silence, he still feels the need to accompany me everywhere I go. A part of me hoped that he’d retreat—maybe send the Operators back to my side when he realized he couldn’t make things right between us, but no. He’s with me everywhere I go, and it’s a constant reminder of the pain, regret, betrayal.  
        But he’s stopped trying with me. And even though I should be thrilled that he’s no longer trying to convince me we should be together still, it breaks my heart. The two of us hardly speak, and only about official business. And I fear that in my attempts to distance myself from him—regain a bit more of my freedom—I might have made the situation worse.  
        I need to make things right with him. It’s the only way I’ll survive.  
        I go to his quarters that night. But the entire time while walking down the dark hallway toward the only bit of warmth and light at the end, I’m trembling. I peer around the corner of his room. Just like every night, the warm glow of the fires create dancing shadows on the wall, and the sound of Redeye playing through the radio and the crackling of the fires is all I hear. But Gage is nowhere in sight.  
        “Gage?” I call out weakly, and something crashing from the kitchen area grabs my attention. Seconds later, Gage appears around the corner looking perplexed.  
        “Need somethin’, boss?” I hesitate to speak. A strong part of me tells me to just go back to my room. “Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it,” he follows up when my words fail me.  
        “We, uh…we need to talk.”  
        He nods. “Yeah, okay.” But he lingers in the doorway. “This a conversation between me and you? Or me and the boss?”  
        “Me,” I say quietly.  
        He stares at me for a long while. As if considering if he’ll even be a part of the conversation. He tips his head toward the table. “Sit down.”  
        We both move to the table and sit next to each other. I search my mind for anything to say, something to begin with. But Gage’s gaze on me is intense, and I’m not even sure where to begin. Because even being this close to him makes me want to cry. And within seconds, I can’t control my tears. “I hate this, Gage. I hate…what’s happening between us.”  
        He hangs his head for a moment. “Yeah, I do too. But I don’t know why you’re crying. I told you it doesn’t have to be this way.”  
        “I’m crying because…you lied to me. And now I can’t help but feel that everything you said to me was…just a lie to get what you want out of me.”  
        “Nope. That’s bullshit. I told you how I feel about you.”  
        I sob. “But it all could just be another lie…”  
        “Why would I even bother?” he asks, unimpressed. “If it was all a lie, I woulda stopped this little charade as soon as you agreed to help us move into the Commonwealth.” He looks so disappointed in me. The same kind of expression given to me when I returned from the bottling plant. Something that seems happened ages ago. He sighs. “All this is just a waste of time, Scarlett. You and I both know that we still want somethin’ outta this. Ain’t no use in bein’ mad at each other. Not when we could both die tomorrow.”  
        I know he’s right. “I do want you,” I say desperately. “But sometimes I think…too much has happened between us. And maybe we’ll just be better off finding someone else…”  
        “You ain’t findin’ no one else ‘round here, I guarantee that. I’d put a bullet in anyone’s head who tries to lay a finger on you.”  
        His angry raider is starting to show, and it doesn’t make me want to continue trying to make amends. Because it’s the angry raider that got us where we are. Or maybe that’s just him and he constantly just wears a mask around me. “Gage,” I groan, because it’s not at all the point I was trying to make.  
        “Stop tryin’ to overcomplicate this, Scarlett. Because to be honest, I’m gettin’ sick of the drama,” he says, and I almost lash out at him right then and there. But he continues. “I already told you I was sorry. Told you I still wanna be with you. That I wanna try and make things right. I don’t know what else you expect me to do.”  
        “I don’t know either…”  
        “Then what are we even talking about?” I don’t respond. “Look, I’ll make it real simple for you. Do you want to be with me or not?”  
        I scoff. “It’s not that easy…”  
        “Do ya? It’s a yes or no question. But be careful how you answer. Because if it’s a no, there ain’t no comin’ back from that.” I’m losing ground here, and I’m astounded that I never realized how easily Gage takes control of a conversation. I came into the room thinking I have all the power. But I realize now that I have none. “Answer the question,” he says firmly. “You tell me you want things to go back to how they were, then I’ll make it happen.” How things were. Before all this shit happened. Yes, that’s what I want. I nod. “Say it,” he demands.  
        “Yes,” I say quietly. “I want things to be like they were.”  
        He exhales heavily. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He has no fucking idea. But Gage leans toward me slowly. Unsure if he really should at all, and every inch he advances, my heart starts beating just a little bit faster. I turn my head to he as he gets closer, and then he hesitates to bring his hand to the side of my face. I pull back slightly, and he stops momentarily. Studying me, a sort of suspicion coming across his face.  
        “Gage,” I say quietly, and then I almost can’t speak at all. “Kiss me.”  
        The suspicion in him, is slowly disappears as he leans closer to my lips. And when he kisses me, he kisses me softly. A sweet, lingering kiss while caressing my cheek with his thumb before opening his mouth slightly to brush his tongue over my lips.  
        The feeling makes me quiver. “I knew you couldn’t stay away from me, Scarlett,” he says in between his deepening kisses. “We were meant to be together. Two people born over two-hundred years apart, and we found each other.” His low voice whispering to me like that, it sends chills down my body. “If that isn’t enough of a sign, I don’t know what is.”  
        I smile weakly through the kiss, my breath shaking against his lips as I do. “You don’t strike me as the type to believe in fate.”  
        He laughs. A low, cool sort of chuckle. “Maybe I never did until you came along.”  
        My stomach is in knots, and Gage’s lips against mine again, it breaks my heart. And it terrifies me. But I bring my hand to his face and deepen our kiss, allowing my passionate side to take over as he relinquishes all control unto me. And as I climb on top of him as he leans back in his chair, a shift of power takes place. A small shift, one I’m certain that only I detect. Or maybe he’s willing to give up his power in this moment.  
        His breath quivers against my mouth as I straddle him. “You gonna fuck me now, Scarlett?” he asks, and I tremble at his words.  
        I swallow hard and look deep into his eye. But it reveals nothing of his soul. “Yes.” He seems hazy though, intoxicated from our sweet moment. A moment I’m sure he never thought he’d get to have again.  
        He unbuttons my pants, and I climb off of him to pull them down. The entire time, he watches me, and it puts me on edge. Because here I stand before him, naked once again. Vulnerable in a way I never expected to be in his presence again. I lean onto the table, and Gage grabs my pant legs and yanks them off of me completely.   
        He unbuckles his belt and then his jeans, standing as he does. And when he approaches, I push him back. “No,” I say. “Sit back down.”  
        He stares at me for a moment, wondering if that’s really how he wants to have me. That darkness inside of him, I see it staring me straight in the face as he lowers himself back into the chair and removes himself from his jeans. Already aroused, hard, and he starts stroking the length of his erection, waiting for me to continue.  
        I climb on top of him again, and he holds on to himself until the head of his cock moves inside of me. That jolt of energy I feel every time he enters inside me, it hasn’t changed, and I can’t contain a moan at the feeling of the thickness of him pushing further into me. I stop for a moment to accommodate his size, and Gage forces his lips onto mine, devouring me in that passionate way he always does when he enters inside of me.  
        He groans through the kiss and wraps his arms around me, and slowly, I start moving on top of him. But my trembling hasn’t stopped, and my heart continues to skip beats with every move I make. “You’re shaking, Scarlett,” he says through his heavy breaths.  
        I almost start crying right then and there. “You do that to me.”  
        He seems pleased at the news. He moves one of his hands to my ass to guide me while the other remains wrapped around me, keeping me close to him. But our exchange, it won’t last long. I always know with Gage. Depending on how things are initiated, sometimes he can go a while, and sometimes only a few minutes. But this time, us fucking each other was so unexpected, and within minutes, he starts panting heavily against me, moaning loudly every so often. And when he starts thrusting his hips upward to meet my advances, I know he’ll finish soon. “Christ, I never thought I’d get to do this to you again,” he groans.  
        He’s killing me. I wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face into him to muffle the sound of my cries. Because all of this is so overwhelming, and I don’t think he’d even begin to understand why I feel the need to cry. “Gage,” I moan.  
        “Oh fuck, Scarlett…you gotta slow down…” he groans, but I don’t. He tries to hold me back a bit, resisting the urge to thrust up into me as best he can, but the feeling of his impending orgasm is too much for him to deny. And that dire need building up inside of him is becoming unbearable for him. “Slow down, baby…you’re gonna make me come…”  
        But I want him to come. “I can’t slow down,” I moan. “It feels too good.”  
        “Shit…” he says while exhaling heavily against me. He closes his eye tight, no doubt trying to escape to somewhere that’ll push his orgasm back a bit. But I don’t want that to happen. I need him to come. But he tries to pick me up. Perhaps to regain a bit of control.  
        “No!” I whine while bringing my hands to his face. “I like it like this…”  
        He groans. “I can’t hold it in much longer, Scarlett…” He tilts his head back and another moan escapes him. “Not like this…”  
        “I love making you come, Gage…come for me…”  
        He doesn’t want to yet, but I’m making it hard for him. “Uh…” he moans. “Oh, fuck…Scar…”  
        “I want you to come all over me,” I whine, and Gage shakes his head.  
        “No…” he says quietly, but I’m losing him to his world of pleasure. And now his upward thrusts, they become faster, harder. His grip on me becomes tighter. He brings his hand to the back of my head and forces my lips back onto his, his tongue reaching into every part of my mouth as he takes over me completely. “Here it comes, baby…” he grunts through clenched teeth against my lips, and then a pained expression appears on his face.  
        He’s radiating heat, and his heart pounds against my chest. I try to move off of him, but he holds me in place, and his mouth silences any protest I might have to where he’s chosen to finish. He thrusts upward and holds himself deep inside of me, grunting into my mouth as he does. I’m finally able to pull my mouth away from his when he’s lost in his euphoric moment, but he still holds me down on him while emptying himself inside of me.  
        “Uhhhh…fuck yeah…” It takes him a moment to come back to me, and I’m stunned at what he’s just done without any sort of warning. He inhales deeply and picks his head up to look at me. “I just gave you everything I have. You’re mine forever,” he says, and a cold chill shoots up my spine.  
        He brings his hand to my face and kisses me again, but I’m disturbed by his words and the intentions he had for doing what he did, though I’m certain it won’t end in his favor.  
        Gage asks me to stay the night with him, and I agree. But I can hardly sleep. And after managing to get only about an hour, I awake to find Gage lying next to me still, but he’s awake and watching me. I stare at him for a moment, wondering what he’s thinking. But a grin spreads across his face. “You’re so beautiful when you sleep. So vulnerable.”  
        His words make me feel uncomfortable, but I force a smile and lean in to kiss his lips. But Gage’s hand on the back of my head forces a deep connection out of me, and he rolls onto his back, pulling me onto him as he does. “Good morning,” I manage to say through my raspy voice.  
        He smiles. “Good morning. What’s the plan for today, boss?”  
        I think for a moment. Of course I knew he’d be accompanying me wherever I went, but I really hadn’t given my plan for the day much thought. “I, uh…I need to get a message out to the Commonwealth. About the expansion.”  
        “Oh yeah? To who?” he asks.  
        I shake my head slightly. “A few friends of mine. They can help us secure the locations we need.”  
        Gage brushes a bit of hair out of my face. “Nah, we don’t need them. You got an army of raiders just waitin’ to be thrown into the action.”  
        I think for a moment. “What about supplies? We need someone on the other side to get us set up with the bare essentials.”  
        Gage shakes his head. “I got just the man for the job. But don’t start worryin’ about all that yet, all right? Let’s take it slow. Come up with a plan here in Nuka-World before we start makin’ moves out there. It’ll pay to be prepared. For now, let’s just work on us, okay? Get us back on the same page.”  
        I can’t think of anything to respond with, but it seems that Gage still doesn’t trust me to send messages to the Commonwealth. He pulls me down onto his chest and brings his hand to my hair to run his fingers through while we lie in bed together.  
        I convince Gage to leave Nuka-Town with me early that afternoon to take a tour around the grounds surrounding the park, though he’s not entirely thrilled about the idea. Tells me it’s a needless risk with no benefit. But I soften him up by telling him I think it’s important for the two of us to bond like we did in the beginning. Off on an adventure, just the two of us. Maybe something will happen, maybe something won’t, and he warms up to the idea eventually.  
        But really, I just want to leave the grounds of Nuka-World. Wander around for a bit, and spend some time with Gage away from the parks and away from the raiders. Because then maybe the toxicity between us won’t be so poisonous. That’s what Nuka-World has become—a poison, one that’s been injected inside of me, and I need to purge myself or I’m certain I’ll die.  
        We head to the market and gather some supplies before heading out on our journey, and as soon as we pass through the gates of Nuka-World, I feel an instant weight being lifted from my chest. And it’s suddenly easier to breathe. I stand at the edge of the walkway with my head lifted toward the warmth of the sun. I close my eyes and inhale deeply, and for a moment, I’m able to imagine I’m somewhere far away from here.  
        “What’re you thinkin’ about?” Gage asks as he stops next to me.  
        I feel a smile spread across my face. “I’m thinking about the ocean. Me and you. In a little cottage off shore somewhere. Dogmeat sniffing around in the grass. The thick, bright green grass that I haven’t seen in centuries.”  
        Gage chuckles. “Dogmeat?”  
        “He’s my German Shepherd.” I open my eyes and look to Gage. “You like dogs?”  
        He shrugs. “I got nothin’ against ‘em, really. Unless their rabid. Then I’m all too happy to put ‘em down.” But he brings me back to the hell in which we exist. “Should we get moving?” he asks, and I give him a sweet smile before taking the lead.  
        We walk for about an hour—far enough away from the walls of Nuka-World, but still close enough to see the parks. Don’t want to wander out too far, Gage says, and I don’t really blame him. We have no stimpaks and limited ammo, only prepping ourselves for an afternoon of adventuring with really no intention to be caught in a gun fight.  
        We approach a run-down town known as Bradburton. I clench my rifle in my hands and tip my head to the buildings on our right, signaling to Gage to check it out while I take the left side before meeting back up in the middle. But really, I’m not paying much attention to any threat lingering. The small town, it takes my breath away. And it saddens me. It looks as though it might have been a nice place to live before the bombs fell. Small, quaint. Seemingly colonial, a style in which I’ve always enjoyed.  
        “I don’t see nothin’,” Gage says while approaching my side once more. But then we hear it. The guttural growling of a very specific type of opponent. Ferals.  
        We look straight ahead and see one staggering toward us. I raise my rifle, but Gage’s hand on the barrel keeps me from firing. He tips his head further up, and I notice two more ferals staggering toward us. He motions me to follow him into a rundown building on our left. We climb a flight of stairs to the second level—one where all the walls have all but been destroyed.  
        “We’ll pick ‘em off from here. Least we know they won’t sneak up on us.” Gage kneels down next to the edge of the building, but I’m not so sure my shaking hands and blurred vision will allow me to pick them off so easily.  
        I crouch down next to him. He fires a shot and gets one right in the head. “Nice.”  
        He smirks at me. “Next one’s yours,” he says, and I feel his gaze upon me. I feel nervous in this moment. Sure, Gage and I have fought side by side numerous times, but never under these circumstances. Never with him observing my technique, my target being further away than most and walking in jagged lines.  
        I inhale deeply and then exhale slowly, but while looking through my scope, my target becomes blurred, and my hands won’t steady enough to focus. But I squeeze the trigger anyway, missing completely.  
        I feel more vulnerable in this moment than I have with Gage in a long time. My breath quivers as I lower my gun. I feel disheartened and embarrassed. Because now I think he knows I’m not as good a fighter as he originally thought. Not at long range anyway, and it’s something I’ve yet to come to terms with.  
        “It’s all right,” Gage says. “You just need to calm down. You’re gettin’ all worked up.” But he doesn’t understand. Even if I could see the target clearly, my shakiness prevents me from really locking on.  
        “It’s…not that. I’m just…” I lower my rifle and massage one of my palms before shaking my hand out. As if that might help in some way, though it never does. “I’m just not very good at long range.”  
        “Well, that’s why you practice.” Gage sets his gun down and moves behind me. “Pick up your gun,” he says, and I do as he asks. I try to focus on my target again, but my hands start shaking, and I grow frustrated. “You need to stabilize your hands.”  
        “Easier said than done.”  
        “Get down on your stomach,” he says, and I do. “Now use the ledge there to give you some support.” Again, I do as he says, though Macready’s spent a lot of time trying to perfect this method as well with no success. Once my hands are stabilized and I focus on my target as best I can, I fire a shot, missing the ghoul completely. “All right, now I never said shoot the thing.”  
        “Well? What else was I supposed to do?” I ask while looking over my shoulder at him, and he smirks at me.  
        “All right, stop gettin’ frustrated. Hold it up again.” I do as he asks and lock on to my target when I feel Gage lean over me. “Your first problem is, you’re overcompensating. Look at how tight you’re holding your gun.” I glance at my hands. My knuckles are white from how tightly I’m clenching the thing. I loosen my grip and look down the scope again. “Okay, your hands are looser. But look at your arms. I can barely move ‘em,” he says while grabbing my bicep, and I can’t help but feel annoyed.  
        “It allows me…to stabilize.”  
        “Nah, that’s bullshit. You figure the tenser you are, the less likely you are to shake. But it ain’t true. You need to calm yourself, hold your gun like it’s…I dunno, a baby or…a puppy. Somethin’ like that.”  
        I chuckle. “A baby or a puppy?”  
        “What? You women love that shit,” he laughs. “Seriously though, just…try it out.” I try as best I can, and when I feel my muscles become tense while focusing on the target, I take a deep breath and try and relax them. I feel Gage’s hands move to my shoulders, and he leans into the side of my face. “It’s all right, Scarlett,” he says quietly, soothingly. “It’s just me and you out here.  And I ain’t gonna let anything happen to you.”  
        I exhale slowly and nod. “Okay.”  
        “Take a deep breath. Let it out nice and slow, and squeeze the trigger as you do. Don’t pull on it ‘cause it’ll throw you off.”  
        Yes, I know. Something Macready also taught me. But I inhale deeply and exhale slowly, and before letting all the air leave my lungs, I squeeze the trigger, clipping the ghoul in the shoulder and knocking it to the ground. I sigh, exasperated. “Shit.”  
        “No, that was good.”  
        “He’s still alive,” I complain.  
        “Yeah, but you knocked ‘em on his ass. That were a person, he’d been down for the count.” But I hardly feel encouraged. While Gage managed to ease my shaking, my obscured vision from that far will continue to hinder me no matter how calm I am. “Go ahead, finish ‘em off.”  
        I shake my head. “He’s too far, Gage.”  
        “Yeah, and that’s a rifle in your hands.”  
        “No, you…you don’t get it. After what happened at Bunker Hill, I can’t see that far away. Everything gets all blurry, and…”  
        “Yeah, but you don’t really need to see the details on ‘em, do ya? You can see ‘em, right? You can tell the difference between it and the ground?”  
        I scoff. “Yeah…”  
        “Well, all right then.” I’m hesitant, and Gage rolls his eyes. “Come on, get back into position.” I do as he asks, and once again, he leans over me. “Line it up.” I do as best I can. “Now…stop looking at him so much, and look right here…” he says while pointing to the crosshair. “Your peripherals should be able to keep your target lined up, but all you really need to focus on is this dot not even ten inches away from your face. You can see that fine, right?” he asks, but I only nod. “So go for it. Right in the fuckin’ head.”  
        “I can barely see his head.”  
        Gage groans. “Come on, Scarlett. You know where a person’s head is. Use your instincts a little, yeah?”  
        I sigh and get back into position. I run through the steps in my head, making sure I’m not clenching the gun too tight, loosening the tautness in my arms. And then I line the crosshair up to the blurry figure in the distance. A figure that once was a man. A man with a head on the top of his body, just like all others. I take a deep breath and then slowly exhale, and once again, before all the air leaves my lungs, I squeeze the trigger.  
        The sound of my rifle rings out through the town—echoing against the building. I pick my head up and look toward my target in disbelief. The ghoul’s head—no longer attached to its body. I feel a smile break across my face, but the sound of Gage’s gun startles me, and I look up at him.  
        He lowers his gun. “The other one was gettin’ away. But, nice job.”  
        I’m stunned by him. Amazed that Macready wasn’t able to help me with my problem, but Gage somehow had the patience, and now, I successfully killed something from long range. And I feel very thankful for what he’s done for me.  
        We clear out a few more ferals before planting ourselves on the cement steps leading to an old police station. The warmth of the sun on our faces while we partake in some mutfruit we got from the market. “That was real good, Scarlett. You just need to keep practicing is all. Hell, if you want, we can come out here a couple days a week to work on it,” he says, and I smile at him.  
        “That sounds nice.” Gage takes a bite of his mutfruit and looks out toward the dilapidated town before us, and I study him. Leaning back on the steps, a couple below myself. “Can I ask you a question?”  
        “Didn’t you just?” he says, and I hesitate before laughing. Because I realize he’s only dishing out the same bullshit I gave to him weeks ago, and even he can’t hide an entertained smirk. “Nah, what’s up?”  
        “How’d…how did you lose your eye?”  
        He looks up at me and considers for a moment. But then he shrugs and directs his attention outward again. As if the story is much more boring than he’d like to admit. “It’s really nothin’ exciting.”  
        “I wanna know,” I say while leaning on my knees to somehow get closer to him.  
        He clears his throat and tosses his mutfruit aside. “Lost it in a bar fight. Some asshole thought it’d be fair to bring a broken bottle into a fist fight.”  
        “Are you serious?” I ask, appalled.  
        “As a heart attack. Fucker stabbed my right in the eye. Guess he couldn’t take losin’ in front of his girl.” Gage chuckles.  
        “How long ago was that?”  
        He inhales deeply and thinks for a moment. “Shit, I dunno. Ten years ago. Somethin’ like that. It’s been a long time. So long I can’t even remember what it felt like.” He glances up at me, staring at him, slightly entertained from his story. Gage chuckles. “See? I told you it wasn’t that exciting.” I can’t help but snicker. “The sun’s gonna start setting soon. You wanna see if we can find anything worth taking around here and then head back?”  
        I nod. “Yeah, I do.” Gage stands and offers me his hand, and the two of us set off in search of some small loot that might make the day a success.  
        We manage to find a few cap stashes hidden about, and after picking the lock of the safe in one of the old stores, we gain a 10mm pistol, some ammo, and a stack of prewar money. “You could always use it in the Nuka-Cade,” Gage chuckles after I stash the money in one of the pockets lining my belt.  
        “That actually sounds like fun. We should hit up the arcade when we get back.”  
        “Whatever you wanna do,” he laughs.  
        By the time we start nearing Nuka-World again, the sun has started to set, painting the sky in beautiful shades of orange and pink. And if I’m being completely honest, I’ve never seen such a beautiful sky in my life. Though during the day, the sky is nothing to be admired, being dampened by the radiation lingering in the air. But at this time of day, something about the sun setting and breaking through the mist, the radiation manages to give it the most beautiful colors, and I can’t help but stop on a hill and admire the scene for a moment.  
        “Wait right there,” Gage says, and I look down at him standing halfway up the hill, staring at me with a grin.  
        “What?” I ask through a smirk, suspicious of him.  
        “I wish I had a picture of you right now. Standing like that on the hill with the sun setting behind you.” His grin disappears, and now he seems thoughtful. Thoroughly enjoying his moment of admiration. “You really are a stunner, you know that? Like one of them old pinup models I seen pictures of.”  
        I can’t help but laugh. “A pinup model. Hmmm.”  
        “I mean it in a good way,” he says while approaching me. He brings his hands to my waist, and I smile as he pulls me into him. “Still don’t know what the hell you’re doin’, slummin’ around with a guy like me.”  
        I laugh and bring my hands to his face. “I think you’re beautiful.”  
        “Heh heh oh, yeah?” I nod. “Thanks, I guess.”  
        “I mean it in a good way,” I assure, and Gage smiles while moving in to kiss me. And the two of us just stand there for a while, holding each other in the sunset, kissing intermittently. We even start swaying a bit. Perhaps the wind. Or perhaps the urge to dance with one another, something I’m certain he hasn’t done in a long time, if at all. And myself? It’s been centuries. But I want to exist in this moment forever, though I know I can’t. We can’t, as much as I hate letting him go to make our way back to Nuka-World.  
        By the time we make it back to Nuka-Town, the sun has all but set. Gage and I walk side by side, very close to one another. Chit chatting about nothing in particular while making our way to the Nuka-Cade. But a sound I’ve never heard before puts me on alert. And alarm going off through Nuka-Town, and I grab Gage’s arm.  
        “What’s happening?”  
        He looks around to all the raiders running through the park, cheering and hollering. “Nah, nothin’. Someone’s in the Gauntlet.”  
        “That thing’s still operational?” I ask, stunned.  
        “Well, yeah. You never gave the order to shut it down. The Packs been runnin’ it since the Disciples have been removed.” I feel sick. “Come on, let’s go talk to Fritsch. Get him to turn that damn thing off.”  
        Gage escorts me to the Nuka-Cade, and once I enter, I regret not having come sooner. I’m sure I could have had a lot of fun in a place like this. It’s dimly lit, blue lights being the main source of illumination. It gives off a very warm, inviting vibe despite the coolness of the colors, or maybe it’s all the games lined up against the walls that I suddenly have a very strong urge to play.  
        Gage and I approach one of the raiders present, and he looks excited. “You heard the alarm, right? Someone’s in the Gauntlet. Looks like a real tough one too!”  
        “Yeah, well turn that damn thing off. The boss ain’t gonna be fightin’,” Gage says.  
        But Fritsch seems disappointed. “I mean, I can make sure the little rat never gets out of the maze, but I’m not gonna lie. The raiders might be a bit disappointed,” he says. “Haven’t really had any entertainment since you took down Colter, boss.”  
        “Well, she’s got more important things to worry about right now,” Gage says.  
        I shake my head. “No, I…I wanna fight.”  
        “All right, that’s what I’m talking about!” Fritsch says, and I try my best to ignore the abruptness in which Gage focused all his attention on me.  
        “It’s not happenin’ tonight, Fritsch,” Gage says. “Get rid of him.”  
        “Gage, a word?” I hold my finger up to Fritsch and pull Gage aside, but it looks like he’s already made up his mind. “Why won’t you let me fight?” I ask in a hushed tone.  
        “Why do you want to?” he asks, suspicious.  
        But I can’t think of a response. I shake my head. “I dunno. Might be kind of fun. A good way to let off some steam.”  
        “Yeah, well this ain’t just a way to let off steam. It’s not like going to the firing range, boss. It’s a fight to the death.”  
        As if I somehow forgot. “I know that, Gage. I’ve been in the arena once before.”  
        “Something I constantly try and forget,” he says. He seems disappointed while shaking his head at me. “It’s a needless risk, Scarlett. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone.”  
        “No, I…I do. And you said it yourself, the raiders like to see their boss fight. Maybe…maybe this is a good thing. Doing this before moving out to the Commonwealth. Restoring a bit of faith in their Overboss.”  
        Gage sighs. “You really wanna do this?” he asks. I hesitate to answer. Because the idea of being in the arena again is terrifying.  
        “So, what’s the call, boss? You gonna give us a show, or what?” Fritsch asks, and I nod to Gage. Though judging by his expression, he was really holding out hope that I’d change my mind, and Fritsch’s emphasis on the victor being a “tough” one doesn’t make things any better.  
        After gearing up with more ammo than I really know what to do with, Gage escorts me to the arena, and as soon as we enter, the sound of cheering raiders practically deafens me until the two of us make it to the security door leading to the arena. The place where I first set eyes on Gage.  
        He moves to the terminal and starts typing some codes in, but I can’t help myself from attempting to look through the windows toward the locker room where my opponent is being updated on everything that’s going to happen. Something Colter liked to do himself, but I generally don’t like to speak to the person I’m planning on killing.  
        “All right, boss,” Gage says while moving away from the terminal, pulling my attention back to him. “We’re all ready to go. But if you so much as take a knee in there, I’m comin’ in, guns blazin’, you get me?”  
        “Gage, I’ve got this. Really.”  
        He sighs. “I know you do. But you never know what kinda shit these low life scavvers are packing. And I’m not about to let you go because you decided to have a little fun one night, all right?”  
        I smirk. His concern comes from a good place. “You suck at pep talks.”  
        He grins. “Nah, you don’t need a pep talk. I ain’t gonna let you die out there. And I’ll be right here when you’re done.” I nod and move into him, and he wraps his arms around my waist. I kiss him tenderly. And when he tries to pull away, I kiss him again. And he’s all too willing to appease me.  
        The two of us part lips and then just admire each other for a moment. The sort of gaze that takes your breath away because you’re looking in the face of someone you love very dearly. And it might be the last time. “I love you, Gage,” I say in a very serious manner. A manner that seems to disturb him. “I love you…very much.”  
        He runs his hand over my cheek and through my hair. “I love you too, Scarlett. Really, I do.” I kiss him one more time. Because I always feel like it’s never enough. But he seems concerned.   He shakes his head. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you out there. I promise, you’re…you’re coming home with me tonight.”  
        I give him a weak smile. “All right, boys and girls, it’s show time!” Redeye yells over the intercom, and the raiders in the crowd go wild. The start chanting the same thing they did during my run in the arena.  
        “Death, death, death, death!” And as I turn away from Gage and face the security door, a strange feeling comes over me. Only a month before, it was me standing on the other side of my victor’s door while the raiders cheered for Colter. And now, they’re cheering for me. And it’s all been such a strange turn of events.  
        I never would have imagined myself here, ready to enter the arena again. Ready to take down the opponent who dare wander into my land. Because I’m the Overboss now. And this is my arena. Thos are my raiders. And that’s my Gage. I look over my shoulder at him. He’s standing at the terminal, waiting for my signal. I not to him, and moments later, the security door opens.  
        My heart pounds as I cross the threshold into the arena. And for a moment, I feel as though I can breathe all over again. Just like when I left Nuka-World earlier that day with Gage, and I want more of this feeling. But the sad fact is, only one person gets out of the arena. And it has to be me. As much as I don’t want to kill the person standing on the other side of that door, it just has to be me.  
        The security door to the locker room opens, and my opponent races into the arena. A quite sizable man, but nothing I haven’t faced before. Though he’s dawned in thick armor, and in his hand, a barbed-wire bat.  
        I pull my shotgun from my back and fire a shot, only getting him in the shoulder. He staggers back a bit, but comes back to me in full force, swinging his bat down toward me as he does. I step to the side and use my gun to block his hit, and the force from which he came at me causes him to stagger.  
        I cock my shotgun and fire again, hitting him in the back and sending him face first into the ground, though the fight is far from over. His armor is comparable to power armor, though nowhere near as bulky. As if he came across power armor and decided he needed to lighten the load a bit to allow more agility.  
        I step back and cock my shotgun again, but the man scrambles to his feet. I fire and miss—my nerves getting the better of me. Because my heart is pounding. My hands are shaking, and it’s hard to focus when I hear the raiders cheering me on, Redeye referring to me as Overboss Scarlett, and Gage’s watchful eye through the glass on the security door.  
        He comes at me, swinging his bat once more, and I attempt to use my shotgun to block the hit. I manage to avoid any damage to myself, but he sends my shotgun out of my hands and sliding across the arena floor. I go to grab it, but the man swings at me again, and I have to jump back just to avoid contact. Because one hit of that bat on my head, it’s lights out. Probably forever.  
        “You’re going down, little girl,” the man says, and I raise an eyebrow to him.  
        “I’m sorry. That’s just not an option.” I grab my rifle from my back and start backing away from him, closer to the closed security door leading to the locker room. I raise my rifle, but his bat comes swinging down on top of it, pulling it down and away from his face.  
        He draws me nearer while I attempt to hold onto my rifle. And before he can raise his bat again, I head butt him. Something Paladin Danse taught me a long time ago, and even though a shooting pain comes ringing throughout my skull and I feel a bit of blood on my forehead, the blow knocks him back a bit. I smash my rifle into his face, knocking him back once more, and then I unload on him. Five shots in a row, and the man falls backwards onto the ground.  
        The raiders go wild, though my opponent isn’t dead yet. I’ve pierced his armor though, and blood is not detectable from his wounds. Yes, he’s wounded all right, and winded. Almost too winded to really do much as I approach.  
        I grab his bat, though he fights to hold on. And only when I bring my boot down on his elbow—cracking his arm under foot—does he howl in pain and release his barbed wire bat. I drop my rifle and stare down at the man, wondering what brought him to Nuka-World. How he ended up in the Gauntlet. I try to convince myself he’s a raider or a gunner. The type of person I’d be happy to put down if I encountered him in the wastes. It’s the only thing that helps me do what I have to do.  
        I raise his bat over my head. “I’m sorry.” Before he can even respond, I bring the bat down onto his face, using all my effort to smash his head in over and over again until I know for sure he’s dead.  
        The crowd goes wild. Redeye is yelling something over the intercom, and I feel the strong urge to cry. But I use that pain as my driving factor. Because I need it, every bit of it. I need everything I have in me in this moment. I turn to the crowd and lift the bloodied bat in the air, victorious over my domain once again, and they. Fucking. Love it.  
        “The Overboss has won! The Overboss has won!” Redeye shouts.  
        “Overboss! Overboss! Overboss!” the raiders yell, but that’s enough of that. I toss the bat aside and gather my rifle and my shotgun near the door to the locker room. And then I look over to Gage standing at the security door next to his terminal. He smiles at me, nodding his head in approval through the glass.  
        I smile widely while taking a few steps toward him, and he disappears momentarily to unlock the security doors. I hear the loud click coming from behind me as the door to the locker room opens. And then ahead of me, the door to Gage. He stands in the doorway, smirking at me, clapping his hands to show his pleasure for my little show.  
        And then, my smile fades. And now, all I want to do is cry. Gage sees this. He gives me a strange look before stepping into the arena. And I take one last good look at him before turning on my heels and running straight for the door leading to the locker rooms.  
        “Scarlett!” Gage calls after me, and I hear his hurried steps on the metal floor of the arena behind me.  
        This moment, it seems to happen really fast. So fast that everything around us seems to move so much slower than usual. And now, all I can hear is my own heavy breathing, my heartbeat in my ears, and Gage’s echoed voice yelling for me while I cross the threshold for the first security door in my way.  
        I don’t dare turn back. Because if I do, he might catch up to me. So I keep looking ahead, eyes focused on the goal and where I need to get. I know I only have seconds to get there. I run through the locker room. Through the door leading to the storage area that houses the set of stairs that’ll take me through the next security door. I jump a few steps with each stride, and I almost panic at the sight of them closing on me—Gage having doubled back to close the doors instead of chase me down.  
        But I have to make it through. If I don’t, I’m as good as dead. My heavy breathing and my heart pounding in my ears is a good motivation to leap the last few steps because if I ever want to hear them again, I can’t slow down.  
        I manage to slip through the door before the space becomes too tight. And as much as I want to stop and catch my breath, revel in the victory of making it past the security doors before  Gage had a chance to lock me in, my escape is only beginning.  
        “Where you going, Scarlett?” Gage’s deep, cool voice says through the intercom as I sprint down the mezzanine and jump the steps leading me to the lower level. There’s no hesitation in me when I reach the door leading me out of the arena. No fear, no contemplation about what might be hiding before me. None of that matters. Because I’m leaving Nuka-World the same way I came in. Through the Gauntlet.


	23. A Last Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood, Scarlett finds herself drawn to the sound of the Nuka-World Broadcast. In search of something she has yet to find in the post-war Commonwealth, she heads for what she thinks is a new Settlement but finds herself stuck in a battle for her life and for her heart.
> 
> But playing puppet master for a gang of raiders isn't what she expected. And Falling for a raider, she did not intend. But is her love for Porter Gage all an elaborate scheme to get what she wants? Or will she soon find a much more formidable opponent pulling the strings?
> 
> *Scarlett makes a daring escape and a desperate attempt to ensure a safe future for herself.*

        I never expected to escape this way. I never wanted to set foot in the Gauntlet again, and as much as I wanted the thing to be torn down, I feel somewhat thankful that Gage advised otherwise. And then I simply just forgot about it. Until I heard the alarms. This wasn’t my plan. My plan was to get the gang leaders and Gage to trust me again. Because with trust comes a bit more freedom, and I expected my escape would take much longer and much more thoughtful planning on my part.  
        But when Gage said someone was in the Gauntlet and Fritsch said the raiders wanted to see me fight, I knew that it was my only opportunity—probably for a very long time. I don’t relish the fact that I had to fight in the arena again. I don’t enjoy killing a man who wandering unknowingly into the Gauntlet, much like I had only a month before. And I hate that Gage and I had to end this way. But if I have any plans of getting out of Nuka-World and warning the Minutemen about what may be on the horizon, this is my only shot.  
        My sweet Gage. So in love and never having been so vulnerable with a person before that he had no way of knowing—no way of seeing my deceit. The territories I promised to the gang leaders? There are no settlements there, and no place anyone might want to live. Useless, damaged land that the Minutemen could care less about. And my afternoon with Gage in Bradburton—just a way for me to scope out the surrounding area. I used an opportunity when he was distracted to stash some supplies for when I did escape, though it seems I won’t be needing them.    Because I managed to get Gage to trust me enough to fight in the arena. And now, here I am again in the Gauntlet, fighting for my life.  
        I run at full speed through the bunker, and with no raiders attempting to kill me from above like the first run through, I manage to get out unscathed. But the Gauntlet has much more in store. And even though I’m hopeful most of the traps and creatures have been disarmed and killed, when I disappear into the darkness of the underground, I can’t help but feel I might die in here.  
        The corridor and stairwell leading me further into the Gauntlet used to house grenades and floor traps all throughout, but only empty strings hang from the ceiling and the ground beneath me, scorched. The smell of gunpowder is thick in the corridor, and it makes it hard to breathe. I move a bit slower through this corridor, in case the previous victor missed something along the way. But when I emerge from the stairwell, I start running again through an open door.  
        But my way out has been compromised. Below me, the murky water where dead mirelurks float about. But my wooden, makeshift balance beam has all but been destroyed. I feel defeated in this moment, but I can’t stop. I look across the water at the rocky wall in front of me. Surely I can climb, but the water below might have more mirelurks. More radiation than I’m equipped to deal with.  
        “All right,” Gage’s cool, deep voice says over the intercom, startling me because for a second, I feel as though he’s caught up to me. But I glance around the room until finding a speaker in one of the far corners. He’s still watching me—that’s a good sign. So long as he’s watching, he’s not pursuing. “You have my attention, Scarlett. You’re not happy. But we can fix this. Just come on back, and we’ll pretend like none of this ever happened.”  
        That’s not going to happen. I sit on the edge of the wall and start inching my body forward. The drop, it isn’t far. But I’m still unsure about what lingers in the water beneath me. And what type of surface lines the floor beneath the murky water. “Scarlett…” Gage warns through the intercom. “I’m trying to work with you here. But if you take one more step, I’ll have no choice but to come after ya.”  
        Though I can’t imagine Gage actually setting foot in the Gauntlet. I drop myself into the water below, sending the murky, dirty liquid up and around me. The coldness of the water, it sends a chill up my body, freezing me momentarily. I hold my rifle high in the air and start taking big, exaggerated steps to the opposing wall.  
        “Scarlett…” Gage says, a bit more agitated. I reach the wall and toss my rifle onto the edge to better grip the rocky terrain and start pulling myself up. “Scarlett!” Gage yells, putting the fear of God in me, and then the intercom goes silent. The silence being much more terrifying than his angered tone.  
        I struggle to pull myself up and over the ledge, and when I’m finally on even ground again, I roll onto my back and revel in my small victory for a moment. But my escape isn’t done just yet, and before me, what used to be a minefield.  
        I still see mines everywhere. The victor must have walked slowly through this area, much like how I did on my first run through and how I’m doing now. But the darkness of the Gauntlet allows me to see the bright, green lights of the active mines, and within ten minutes of careful stepping, I reach the other side of the mine field.  
        The next room, a room full of turrets, ones that have been reduced to a smoky pile of scrap metal. But the sound of a new toy monkey clapping its symbols together startles me, and it triggers some sort of panic in me. The same sort of panic I felt through my initial run through. The same panic I felt in the Fun House in Kiddie Kingdom.  
        I feel lightheaded, and I close my eyes and run my hand over my face to somehow bring me back into the moment. Because now isn’t the time for my post-traumatic stress disorder to get the better of me. But the further I walk into the Gauntlet, the more I start to realize the magnitude of my mistakes.  
        This sick little trap was built by the people who called me boss. And the man I fell in love with, he fought to keep it running. A sadist by the very definition of the word, and I’m unsure how he got me to fall in love with him. Lies and deceit, yes, but my better judgement chastises me for overlooking his flaws. Abandoning what I know to be right and wrong all because of how sweet his ass looks in a pair of jeans.  
        Porter Gage. I love him with every fiber of my being, and it makes me hate myself. Hate and fear myself. Fear the things I might not be so willing to openly admit about myself. Like how easily I seem to allow myself to forget the psychopath he truly is.  
        After making it through the small control room where I shacked up for the night on my first run through, the next obstacle that lies ahead comes flying back at me. I climb up the collapsed wall and face the door leading into the radiation room. With no hazmat suits, radaway, or radx in my possession, I’m left with the same dread that I felt the first go. Only this time, I don’t have a guardian angel looking out for me. The only thing I can do is hold my breath and run through the room as fast as I can, knowing full and well that it won’t really matter. The radiation will still be on my clothes if I make it through to the other side.  
        But facing death this way seems a much more merciful fate than facing an angry mob of raiders that await my return in Nuka-World. And while I’ll do my best to survive, I’ve accepted the idea of possibly dying from radiation poisoning. So I do just that. Run through the room, holding my breath until I reach the stairs leading me out of the pit of radiation. But even when I go to take a breath of fresh air, I feel nauseous. Light-headed, my vision starts fading in and out. And my legs feel as though they’ll give out beneath me.  
        I have to keep going though. At least make it out of the Gauntlet because I don’t wish to die in the possession of the raiders at Nuka-World. Knowing them, they’ll leave me in there to rot—the radiation eating away at my flesh while flies pick at the leftovers.  
        The traps that were once lurking around every corner have been disarmed or set off, and even when I turn the corner that leads me to the knot of wooden posts and rotted bodies, I see they’ve been removed. Replaced by a sickening display of dead animals and mannequins dawned in the Pack’s signature attire. Though the smell is still wretched, I’m able to make it past the display without hurling like the first time.  
        But the radiation running through me is taking its toll, and while attempting to jog through the last room—the room that was once filled with turrets—I’m starting to stagger. The room feels as though it’s moving around me, and while climbing up the sets of stairs leading out of the Gauntlet, I fall to my knees.  
        I’m panting, looking upward toward my freedom. The transit station, mostly dark from the moon being hidden by its structure and only housing one or two trash bins with flames that light the way to the tram. I have to keep moving. I’ll have time to rest on the tram, I tell myself. I climb the last few steps on my hands and knees, and when I reach the top, I feel as though I’m being pulled into a deep sleep. Fading in and out into a dreamlike state.  
        I collapse onto my back and stare up to the ceiling of the transit station. This is the end of the line. I can’t even convince myself that continuing on is a good idea. I want to cry, but even that takes too much effort. I turn my head to the side and let out a heavy breath. My heart is pounding, and even when I breathe in, it feels like I can’t get enough air in my lungs. I want to sleep.   I close my eyes and feel myself start drifting away, but something forces awake.  
        My eyes meet with the empty, dead eyes of a fallen gunner next to me. A gunshot to his head and a pistol in his hand. I watch him for a moment, trying to figure out what caused him to take his own life. Perhaps the fear of the Gauntlet. I turn onto my side and grab onto his harness to pull him a bit closer to me. It takes all the strength I have left to search him, and when my hands clench around a syringe in his jacket, I become hopeful.  
        A stimpak. The very thing that’s been in short supply all around Nuka-World, and I manage to find one on a dead gunner in the transit station. Perhaps I do still have a guardian angel looking out for me. I inject it into my thigh, and it’s like taking a shot of adrenaline. Though I still feel sickly, nauseous, a cold sweat coming over—I feel a have a bit more energy. At least enough to get me on the tram.  
        I roll onto my stomach and push myself up to stagger over to the tram. Inside, the control panel lights up, waiting for me—the conductor—to put it all into motion. But my blurred vision and shaking hands over the control panel make it hard to focus on what needs to be done. The switch, I need to flip it upward. I think. I can barely read the controls.  
“Scarlett! Stop!”  
        Gage’s voice sends a panic through me, and I look upward to see him and a gang of raiders running into the transit station. I start flipping every switch, hitting every button. My shakiness only becoming worse after seeing him. “Come on!” I yell.  
        I look to my left and see a large lever. I didn’t go through all of that just to be caught. There’s no way in hell. I move to the level and use all my strength—all the adrenaline and panic I have inside of me to push it forward. And when I do, I hear the motors of the doors start to work.  
        I back away from the control panel, and Gage running toward the door makes me scream and fall back into one of the seats lining the tram. But the door shuts on him, despite his efforts to grab the edges and pry it open. And then he stares through the glass at me. And I’ve never seen so much malice in him before.  
        Gage hits the door as the tram starts slowly moving backward. “I’ll find you, Scarlett.” He starts moving along the side of the tram with me. “I’ll fucking find you.” But the tram starts moving too fast for him to continue alongside.  
        I climb from my seat and move to the control area again. And Gage and his raiders become smaller and smaller as the tram starts carrying me back to the Commonwealth. But his threat—it stays with me. Because I believe him when he says he’ll find me. I believe when he promises to come looking for me, and I should have known that from the beginning.  
        I make it back to the main transit center for Nuka-World. I’m weak, tired, it’s the dead of night, but I keep moving. Keep walking further and further away from the transit center, and with each step I take, I feel as though a weight is being lifted off my shoulders. When I’m far enough into the woods, I look at my Pip-boy to plan my route, leaning on a tree for support as I do.  
I can’t go to Sanctuary. Not now. Not after Gage’s promise to find me, and it’s too far of a walk in my current condition. That and I’d be lying if I said the idea of explaining myself to Preston and  Macready doesn’t scare the hell out of me. Me, falling in love with a raider. Agreeing to be their Overboss all because of my personal attachment to my Aide De Camp, it sickens me. And it’ll sicken them.  
        I have somewhere more important to be. And by the time I make it to Sunshine Tidings, the sun is rising, and I’m barely clinging to reality. “Hold it right there!” A minuteman on guard says as I approach. “What’s your business here?”  
        I can barely respond. I feel like I’m choking on my own saliva, and vomiting seems like a very real possibility. “Please…” I say weakly. “I need to see Curie.”  
        The man lowers his gun and descends his post. He tips his hat up a bit to get a better look at me. “General? What happened to you?” But I can’t hold on anymore. I feel my knees give out beneath me, and the man grabs onto me to lower me to the ground. “Can I get some help over here?!” he yells. And then everything, the world around me…it all fades to black.

        I awake in a bed, naked and only with a sheet to cover me. It takes a few moments to remember what happened and to gather myself—realize where I am. I pick my head up and see Curie sitting at her desk in the medical hut of Sunshine Tidings. It is dark outside, the only bit of light in the room coming from a few candles on the bedside table and Curie’s desk. And even though  Sunshine Tidings has power, I’m thankful for the primitive way of lighting the medical hut. Because my head is throbbing.  
        “Cur…” my voice breaks. “Curie,” I manage to say loud enough for her to hear.  
        She looks over at me, and within seconds, she’s by my bedside. “Oh, Miss Scarlett. I’m so happy to see you’re awake,” she says in her thick, French accent.  
        “How long have I been out?” I mutter.  
        “Three days.”  
        I’m stunned. “Three days?” I ask while attempting to sit up, but Curie pushes me back down onto the bed.  
        “Oh, you must stay in bed, Scarlett. You’re not well enough yet.”  
        “What happened?”  
        “I detected massive amounts of radiation in your system. You suffered from severe radiation poisoning. But I’ve managed to remove practically every trace. Still, your body is recovering. You must rest.”  
        “It’s so cold in here,” I say through chattering teeth.  
        “You have a fever. The amount of Radway needed to cleanse your system severely damaged your immune system, and you’ve contracted an infection. The antibiotics will help with that though. But now that you’re awake, I encourage you to drink lots of water.”  
        She hands me a bottle of purified water, and I appease her even if it chills my insides to the core. I wince and hand her back the bottle. “I’m so…happy you were still here,” I say.  
        “Yes. I received your telegram to come to Nuka-World yesterday. But since you’re here now, I’m assuming you no longer need me there, yes?”  
        I nod. “Yes…don’t…don’t ever go to Nuka-World. Ever.”  
        Her expression softens. “What happened, Miss Scarlett? From this amount of radiation, I would have suspected you wandered through the glowing sea again.”  
        I can’t talk about what happened. Better yet, I refuse to. No one can ever know of my involvement with Nuka-World, ever. My friends, the people under my command and living in my settlements, they’d never trust me again. I shake my head. “I think I just…stumbled into the wrong side of town,” I say weakly, though Curie is smarter than that. She knows I’m hiding something, but one thing I’ve always loved about her, she doesn’t pry.  
        “Well…since you’re here, I think it’s best to send a message out to Sanctuary. Mr. Garvey has been up in arms since you left, and poor Mr. Macready has been worried sick. I thought it best for you to be the one to write…”  
        “No,” I say abruptly before she moves away from my bedside, and she looks at me, curious. “I, uh…I just think I need to recover for a bit. I don’t…don’t want to get their hopes up if this infection is just going to kill me anyway.”  
        She seems to understand. She doesn’t mention it again. And the next day, I put out an order to keep the Minutemen and settlers of Sunshine Tidings quiet about my whereabouts. Telling them it’s a security thing, to which they seem to understand. But really, I need to buy myself more time. Come up with a story for when I do decide to return to Sanctuary, if I ever do decide to return.  
        A part of me just wants to take off and disappear forever when I’m better. Leave the Commonwealth for good, maybe head for the Capital Wasteland. I’ve heard so much about the Capital Wasteland. Worse than the Commonwealth from what I hear, but no one knows me there. And maybe I can find a nice, peaceful settlement somewhere far away from the city. At least then I’ll be far enough away from Gage, all the raiders at Nuka-World, and the suspicious stares I get from those surrounding me, wondering “where the hell has she been?”  
        In a week’s time, I’m able to be mobile again. I’m given some new clothes. A flannel shirt and jeans, but Curie continues to check in with me. Make sure my body is recovering properly. And the  Minutemen all await some kind of order from me. As if they’re expecting me to demand retaliation after what happened to me—though none of them know any of the details. The only person who knows where I’ve been is Curie, and I’ve sworn her to secrecy.  
        I assign myself to the farming detail at Sunshine Tidings. I’ve never really enjoyed digging in the dirt in the hot sun all day, but it’s something to keep my mind off things. Something to distract me from whatever might be waiting for me the moment I decide to return to my normal life. But I’m in no hurry to do so, and before I know it, four weeks pass in Sunshine Tidings, and still, I have no intentions of returning to Nuka-World or Sanctuary any time soon.  
        “Are you sure you got all the radiation?” I ask Curie during one of my checkups.  
        “Yes, Scarlett,” she says uncomfortably. “You have less radiation in you than anyone else in the Commonwealth. And your infection has been resolved.”  
        “Then why do I still feel this way?” I ask, irritated. My condition having driven me to the point of being a real pain in the ass, and even though Curie is too polite to say, I can see the exasperation on her face.  
        “Perhaps some lingering side effects. Or, maybe a bit of anxiety. You need to try and relax, Miss Scarlett. Drink more water. And of course, you can always stop digging in the dirt all day. Being in the sun so much does nothing for your fatigue.”  
        I sigh, defeated. But maybe she’s right. “Okay. Thanks Curie.”  
        I work shorter hours and spend my free time in the shade, hydrating myself as best I can with a limited water supply. But I’m starting to require more sleep, more food. I feel agitated if I don’t eat enough, and being in the sun only adds to that agitation. To make things worse, the Minutemen at Sunshine Tidings are now turning to me for direction. Informing me of settlements that need our help, asking where they should go, if they should send for Preston to tell him I’m alive and well.  
        I try to play nice as best I can. I tell them that I’m not acting General at the moment, and that they should take their orders from whomever assumed that role in my absence. But still, they continue to pester me.  
        “General,” I Minuteman says while standing over me, blocking the sun from my face while I tend to the Tato plants. I shield my eyes and look up at him. “A telegram just came in from Oberland Station. They have a feral problem.”  
        I nod. “Okay. So send someone out.”  
        “We don’t have enough manpower,” he says. “Not to guard Sunshine Tidings and Oberland Station.”  
        I sigh and wipe my hands on my jeans before standing. But the heat is really getting to me. The saliva in my mouth is dry, and it feels like I’m going to choke on it. But even worse, a knot in the pit of my stomach has slowly been building up all day. “So send a message to Starlight Drive-In and see if they can spare any men.”  
        “Starlight Drive-In is currently rebuilding after a super mutant attack a few weeks ago. They need all the people they have,” he informs me.  
        My annoyance and nausea start to get the best of me. “You know what? Oberland Station has plenty of defenses set up. Turrets, a large perimeter and guard post. For once I’d love it if these people could maybe use the resources at their disposal to handle their own shit,” I snap while pushing past the man.  
        “General?” he speaks.  
        “What?” I retort, rather aggressively while turning back to him, but he seems concerned. The look on his face, it terrifies me, though before I can even respond, a violent contraction in my stomach makes me turn away and start vomiting.  
        Jesus Christ, I really am dying.

  
        “You’re not dying, Miss Scarlett,” Curie says with a smile after doing a checkup on me, but I’m getting sick of her dismissing my physical ailments.  
        “No? Then why the hell am I so tired? Angry, hungry, sick all the time?”  
        A warm smile spreads across her face, and I’m not sure how to respond to such a thing. “You’re…not drying, Scarlett. You’re pregnant.”  
        Her words are paralyzing, and I almost don’t think I hear her correctly. Only when she keeps that warm, excited expression on her face to I realize she said exactly what I thought I imagined hearing. “That’s not possible.”  
        “I assure you, it is. I’d say…about eight weeks.” She grabs my hand. “You’re going to be a mother again.”  
        No, this can’t be happening. I can’t have children. Not after what I’ve been through. But after what Curie tells me, it all starts to make sense. My symptoms having been nearly identical to when I was pregnant with Shaun, only I never thought to consider the possibility. Because I was certain I couldn’t get pregnant.  
        I toss and turn all night, unable to find any peace or relief from the news I’ve been given. A part of me wants to be happy. But when I think of who the father is, I feel nauseous. Or perhaps that’s my pregnancy talking. Even still, it seems completely unfair. And this child, he or she couldn’t have been conceived either of the times Gage chose to come inside of me. Eight weeks pregnant can only mean one thing. Gage got me pregnant the first time we had sex.  
        I don’t leave my room for three days. Three days I spend crying into my pillow, barely eating any of the food at my disposal. This can’t be happening, I keep telling myself, but my constant nausea and fatigue convinces me enough. And on the fourth day of being locked away in my room—after having ignored anyone’s attempts to speak to me, Curie included, I finally emerge.  
        “Miss Scarlett,” Curie says, disappointed while standing outside my door. “I’ve been trying to speak with you for days. Why have you locked yourself away?”  
        “I’m…sorry, I just…needed time to think.”  
        Curie peeks inside the room. “Hmph. Eating only snacks and crying into your pillow. This behavior, I cannot tolerate. You have a life growing inside of you. An innocent, little child that needs love and nourishment. And regular appointments with a medical professional. It’s time you start thinking about what’s best for the baby…”  
        I raise my hand to silence her. “I know, that’s why…I…I have to leave.”  
        She seems astounded. “That is probably the worst thing you can do right now.”  
        “No, I…I have to go back to Sanctuary. There’s…something I need to do. For the baby.” She doesn’t seem convinced. “I have to, Curie. The baby…I need to be with…with the baby’s father,” I say weakly, and I suddenly feel so ashamed of myself.  
        But Curie’s expression softens. “Very well. If you need to return to Sanctuary, then I will accompany you…”  
        “No, you really…”  
        “It is not up for discussion. An expectant mother should not be wandering the Commonwealth without an escort.” I’ve never known Curie to be so pushy before, but perhaps it’s for the child growing inside of me more than for myself. Maybe she doesn’t trust me to make good decisions. Or maybe she feels just as protective of the baby as I do. I am protective of my growing baby. Which is why I’ve decided to play my most wicked and manipulative hand. Because my child can’t know his or her real father. Ever. And neither can anyone else.  
        The next morning, Curie and I head pack a few items—stimpaks, ammo, some food—and start out on foot to Sanctuary Hills. It’s only about half a day’s walk from Sunshine Tidings if you cut through the forest, but Curie is being extra cautious and because of this, we stick to the roads. She insisted upon having Minutemen escort us, but after being told Sunshine Tidings needs all the protection they can get, I refused that option. Also because being pregnant doesn’t suddenly mean I’m worthless in a fight.  
        But I can understand her reluctance to allow me to fight, and sticking to the roads seems a good call as we make it to Concord relatively unscathed, other than having to take out a few bloatflies. But as the sun begins to set and my feet begin to ache in my boots, I’m starting to realize just how fatigued I feel. And now I want nothing more than to sleep for days. Jesus Christ. A pregnancy in the post-war Commonwealth. Not an ideal situation.  
        We stop just before crossing into Concord, and I scan the area as best I can in the fading light from the sun. “What’s the matter?” Curie asks.  
        “Something doesn’t feel right.”  
        “The baby?” she says, concerned while moving closer to me, but I hold my hand out to her and shake my head.  
        “No. There’s something…or someone here.”  
        “Stop right there,” a forceful voice coming from our side directs, and I see two gunners approach with their weapons drawn. A middle-aged man and young female. But they got the jump on us, and I don’t even have enough time to reach for my pistol. “Hands up,” the man orders, and we do as he asks.  
        “Boy, you’ve got some balls wandering through gunner territory,” the girl says. A new development, one I hadn’t been informed of while sitting pretty over in Nuka-World, and I start to wonder how the Minutemen hadn’t picked up on their presence being so close to Sanctuary Hills.  
        “We’re just passing through,” Curie says. “It’s the most direct route…”  
        “I can’t even understand a damn word your saying,” the man says with his gun pointed in our faces. “Now unless you want your brains scattered across the pavement, I suggest you hand over all your belongings and turn the other way.”  
        “We’re not gonna do that,” I say, annoyed. “It’s practically dark outside, and wandering through the woods is a death sentence…”  
        “Shut up!” the girl shouts and presses her gun into the side of my face.  
        “Oh, no! Please don’t. Madam, she’s pregnant…”  
        “Like I give a shit,” the girl snaps, forcing her gun further onto my face, and it causes me to turn my head to the side. I’m a little annoyed Curie played that card, to be honest. But even more annoying, some little gunner girl might be the way I go out. A similar feeling I had while Missy had her gun at my face.  
        “Shame on you,” Curie scolds. “You are a woman. Have you no compassion?”  
        “It’s not my fault she was dumb enough to get knocked up and then go wandering through the wastes,” the gunner snaps.  
        “Enough,” the man snaps, and I open my eyes and look at him. He’s studying me, trying to figure me out in some way. “That true?” he asks, and I nod. He sighs, exasperated before pulling his comrade back. “All right. You’ll pass through Concord. But I still want all your supplies.”  
        “What?” the girl snaps. “Are you serious?”  
        But he ignores her. “Come on, hand it over,” he demands, and the two of us give him everything we have. He hands our belongings to his companion before emptying my pistol of all ammunition except for one bullet. And when he hands it back to me, I’m stunned. “Use it wisely,” he says and then steps aside for us to pass.  
        Hopefully we won’t have to. And even though I want nothing more than to use my bullet on the mouthy little shit the veteran has by his side, I’m thankful that if we were to be held up by anyone, it was a merciful gunner and not some band of raiders. Because we would have been dead before even knowing what was happening.  
        When we pass the Red Rocket Truck Stop, the lights from Sanctuary Hills become visible. A warm feeling comes over me. A feeling I haven’t felt in a long time. Maybe I was homesick. Or maybe I know that I’ll be safe here, finally. Because I certainly took that for granted before Nuka-World. But before crossing the wooden bridge leading to our refuge, I stop Curie for a moment.  
        “Is something the matter?” she asks.  
        “Curie, I need you to do me a favor.”  
        “Of course. Anything.”  
        I hesitate before speaking. “I, uh…I need you to keep this pregnancy thing between us. Can you do that for me?”  
        “Miss Scarlett, the people of Sanctuary Hills should know you are expecting. How else are they going to know not to send you on any dangerous missions? Or keep you from lifting heavy equipment? You need to be taken care of…”  
        “I know that, Curie, just…please. I’m begging you. Let me make the announcement in my own time. I, uh…I want to be the one to…to say it.” She seems skeptical, and I force a nervous luck. “And haven’t you heard that it’s bad luck to talk about it until the second trimester?”  
        “Such an absurd belief, and I’ve never really understood it. But fine. I promise you, this will stay between us until you are ready. On one condition.”  
        “What’s that?”  
        “You do everything I ask throughout the course of your pregnancy. Being an expectant mother is a very difficult thing, I’m certain. But in a world like this, we must be extra careful and attentive to the needs of your baby.” I’m thankful for Curie. I nod and pull her into a hug, and she seems unsure of how to respond.  
        “Thank you.”  
        We approach Sanctuary Hills, and the lights from the gas lamps begin to illuminate our faces in the darkness. The gentle hum of the turrets on their post and the intrigued expression from the guards makes me want to withdraw, but Curies hand on my arm and her kind smile makes me continue. “General?” one of the guards says as we get closer. “Open the gates! The General’s back!”  
        My heart is pounding out of my chest as the gates to Sanctuary Hills begin to open, and just as I suspected would happen, settlers and Minutemen start crowding around as Curie and I enter the threshold. It is night, and the settlement is peaceful—the children and the elderly having withdrawn to their homes. But the number of people crowding around me makes me all the more anxious as I search the crowd for Macready’s face.  
        “General,” Preston says while approaching. A look of concern fades into a slight smile. A bit of relief from him.  
        “Preston,” I nod to him. “How is everything?”  
        Now, he’s grinning widely. He nods. “Everything’s fine. How are you?”  
        But someone breaking through the crowd grabs my attention, and Macready emerges. My heart feels as though it stops beating. And even though I know him very well, I can’t seem to make out what he’s thinking. Panic, relief, anger…it’s everywhere, making it unclear to see which emotion dominates him. “Hey, Macready,” I say weakly, and the next thing I know, he’s pulling me into a tight embrace.  
        “Scarlett,” he gasps. He pulls back a bit and looks into my eyes. The tenderness in him quickly being replaced by a look of disappointment.

        “I thought you were dead,” Macready snaps once we make it back to our quarters. I sit at our dining room table while Macready stands over me, scolding me as if I were a child. And normally I wouldn’t tolerate that sort of treatment, but after everything I’ve put him through, I feel he’s entitled to a bit of scolding. “What happened to you?”  
        I shake my head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I say weakly.  
        “Try me,” he says firmly, but I can’t tell him.  
        “Does it really matter? I’m here now, and…I’m not leaving again.”  
        He’s quiet for a long while, and the silence is a killer. “So that’s it, then. You just expect me to let it go because you say so? I’ve been in…” he groans, frustrated with himself because he so badly wants to curse right now, but his promise to Duncan prevents him. “I’ve been in a real bad place, Scarlett. All the…stuff I felt after losing Lucy, it all came flying back at me when you never came home. And now you just want me to let it go?”  
        I feel my eyes burn. I knew Macready must have been in hell, but witnessing it first-hand makes me feel guiltier for what I put him through. All for my own selfish, stupid reasons. But I can’t tell him what I’ve done. Not even just about the raiders, but about Gage? It would break his heart. Because I know how much he loves me, even if the two of us were only ever friends. “I’m sorry,” I say weakly. It’s all I have.  
        He sighs. “Yeah, well…I’m sorry too,” he says, and I look up at him. Arms folded across his chest, a pointed expression. “I’m sorry you don’t trust me enough to be there for you in your time of need. I assume this is all about Hancock, right?” he asks. And even though it isn’t, I nod. Because it’s the only thing that might make him retreat.  
        “Daddy?” a quiet, meek voice says from behind me, and I look over my shoulder to see a young boy no older than five standing in the hallway looking rather sleepy. And he looks just like  Macready. The sight steals my breath away.  
        “Hey, buddy,” he says while approaching the young boy. Duncan, I can only assume. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asks while kneeling down in front of his son, and the boy shakes his head.  
        “I heard you yelling.”  
        Macready sighs. “I know, I’m sorry. Come on. Let’s get you tucked in.” Duncan turns away from his dad, though the curious expression on his face from seeing me remains, and I’m certain he wants to ask about who I might be. But Macready stands, pulling my attention back to him. “I’m gonna put him back to bed. We’ll talk more in the morning,” he says.  
        But I stand before he disappears into the darkness of the hallway. “Where’s…where’s Shaun?”  
        “He’s sleeping. The poor kid’s been having nightmares since you left. This is the first time he’s slept for more than an hour at a time, so I’d appreciate if you didn’t go waking him up,” Macready snaps and then turns to head back into the darkness of the hall.  
        I sit at the table by myself for what seems like forever—Macready having retreated to his own room after putting Duncan back to bed. But I can no longer abide his request to not disturb Shaun. Because after everything I’ve been through, I want nothing more in the world than to hold my boy.  
        His room is lit with a Gaslamp on his bedside table. A night light for him, something I wouldn’t have suspected a synth needing. But after what Macready told me about him having nightmares, I start to realize that perhaps there is so much more to him than just being a synth. Perhaps he understands more things than I assumed. I know Curie does, and my bitterness toward Shaun seems completely absent in this moment.  
        Now, I look down at the sleeping child in the bed and see only one thing. My son. My beautiful baby boy, and for the first time since taking him from the Institute, I enjoy looking at him. Because he looks exactly like his father.  
        I crawl into the bed next to him and wrap my arms around him, pulling him closer to me while burying my face into his neck and inhaling deeply. My sweet child, and having him so close makes me want to cry. But Shaun awakes. He doesn’t seem startled by me. More curious than anything.  
        “Mom?”  
        “Yeah, baby. It’s me.”  
        He gives me a strange look. “I thought you died.”  
        I shake my head. “No. I just went away for a while.”  
        He seems sad. “I missed you.”  
        I feel a tear fall down my cheek. “I missed you too. And I promise, I won’t ever do that again without you, okay?”  
        He nods. “Okay,” he says and then rests his head against me.  
        “Mommy’s here now. So go to sleep,” I say and then kiss the top of his head, doing as best I can to hold back my tears for fear they might keep him awake.  
        I hold him like that for a long time. For hours, it seems, until I know for certain that he’s drifted into a deep sleep. One that won’t be disturbed by me leaving his side. And when I make it to the doorway, I can’t resist the urge to look back at my young son sleeping in the bed, seeming so peaceful and innocent. And how I ever resented him is beyond me.  
        I close the door to Shaun’s room and cross the hall to Macready’s. And then I stand there for a while, unsure if I should even continue. I figure I need to give him time to calm down—cool off a bit. But I’m in need of comfort. And without assuring things will be okay, I doubt I’ll ever fall asleep.  
        I knock lightly, but there’s no response. I almost turn to leave, but I know I can’t. I need to see him now. It’s the only way things will get better, I convince myself. I open the door and enter his room. Just like in Shaun’s, a Gaslamp on his bedside table gives the room a warm glow. “Macready?” I say quietly, but his bare back faces me and he doesn’t move.  
        I sigh and close the door behind me before climbing into his bed and moving into his back. And only when I wrap my arms around him, does he move. His hand grips my wrist and he pulls me further into him, holding my hand over his chest while he does. And the pounding of his heart and his quivered breath leads me to believe that he’s still very much awake, though feeling tormented and conflicted about how to act toward me.  
        I bury my face into his back and place a gentle kiss on his spine. The most intimate thing I’ve ever done to him. “Please don’t be mad at me,” I beg quietly.  
        Macready sighs. “I’m not…mad at you. Not anymore. I just…” his breath quivers again. “You scared the…hell out of me, Scarlett.” I’m amazed he even said that. “And what was I supposed to say to Shaun every time he asked when you were coming home? You put me in a bad position, and…I’m not thrilled about the mess I’ve been in since you left.”  
        I nod. “I know, baby. I’m so…so sorry.”  
        He releases my hand and turns to face me, and I’m embarrassed of my own tears. But when his hand touches my face and wipes them away, I finally see it in his eyes. The very thing he tried hiding from me in his moments of disappointment. Unconditional love. “We’re supposed to be partners,” he says and then shakes his head. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”  
        Partners. I’m reminded of Gage. We’re partners, he always used to say. And the knot in my chest grows bigger, stronger, more aggressive. And now I can’t hold back my tears as much as I try for Macready’s sake. Because I miss Gage. I miss him so much that it kills me, and carrying his child is torture. Because I want nothing more than to run back to Nuka-World and beg for forgiveness. Tell him that we’re going to be parents.  
        But I can’t. For the life of me, as much as I want to, I just can’t bring myself to do those things. And it’s not even about his lies and betrayal. Those things seem so minor compared to what’s keeping me from him now. Our baby. I will not raise a child in Nuka-World. I will not allow the father of my child to corrupt him or her in anyway. Have the child convinced that the life of a raider is the way to go. It’s not a life I wanted for myself, and it’s not a life I want for my baby.  
        I touch Macready’s face, and he brings his hand to mine. A thoughtful expression in his eyes. But when I place a soft kiss on his lips and pull back a bit to see his reaction, his expression fades into a sort of intrigue. He swallows hard, and I’m unsure of how to continue, if I even should. “Scarlett?”  
        “Yeah?”  
        “Do that again,” he says with a grin on his face, and I smile slightly. I kiss him again, deeper and more tender this time. But all I can think about is Gage. I pull away from his lips and sigh while squeezing my eyes shut. “What’s the matter?” Macready asks, and I shake my head.  
        “Nothing, it’s…it’s nothing.” But he seems insecure. Vulnerable about what I may be keeping from him and even slightly ashamed. So I do my best to forget about Gage in this moment.  Because in this moment, it’s just Macready and I.  
        I kiss him again, and he brings his hand to my face. His lips, so soft against mine. He’s gentle, loving. Not the sort of kisser I expected him to be. No, Macready has a reputation for having a bad attitude, and it’s an attitude I had to put up with for a long time before he warmed up to me enough to be his true self. But even after seeing the most vulnerable parts of him, I never expected him to be so tender in this way.  
        I decide to move forward with him, pushing him onto his back before climbing on top of him, and when our lips part, he looks as though he can’t believe what’s happening. But he glances to the door while bringing his hands to my waist. A nervous sort of behavior, one I take to mean that he wants me to continue, but he doesn’t know if it’s a good idea.  
        “The boys are asleep,” he whispers.  
        “I know. I’ll be quiet,” I say, and a quivering breath escapes him. Because it seems he really can’t believe what’s happening right now. His wide eyes and mouth agape, and I can’t help but smile at his reaction to me being on top of him.  
        I look down at his bare chest. Macready is smaller than Gage, sure, but he’s more toned. A perfect six pack beneath his pale skin whereas Gage has a bit more meat to him, though I’m not sure which I prefer. Maybe it’s Macready’s age. Still so young, though he acts much older than twenty-three.  
        But now it’s time for me to be vulnerable. I remove my shirt and bra, revealing myself to him. But his thoughtful gaze onto my body makes me feel anything but vulnerable. He empowers me in this moment, a look of adoration beckons me to continue. I lean forward and kiss him again, and he inhales me deeply through our exchange. “Scarlett…”  
        “Make love to me, Rob,” I say, and a heavy breath escapes him.  
        He bites his lip and nods. “Okay,” he whispers, eagerness in his voice. He leans upward and wraps his arms around me—holding me like that for a while—our naked upper bodies pressed against one another before turning me onto my back and positioning himself between my legs.  
        The two of us can’t contain our laughter while struggling to get me free from my boots and pants, but once I’m naked, we fall back into each other and in the beautiful moment unfolding between us. Yet only when he reveals himself to me, completely hard, do I start shaking from the anticipation. Because I’m afraid to ruin what we have together. And I think he senses my anxiety. He brings his hand to the side of my face. “Are you sure you want this?” I hesitate to nod, and he sees my hesitation. “Scarlett?” he says, a bit of insecurity and sadness in his voice.  
        Gage comes to mind again, and that annoying pain in my chest reemerges. The pain from my heart being ripped open by the man I love. And the pain I feel for deciding to live life without him. I force my lips onto Macready’s again and sit upward, pushing him back onto his knees as I do. And then I start kissing his cheek, his neck, his chest. All over him to somehow convince him that this is what I want.  
        I grip his erection, and he stops breathing for a second while I begin to stroke him slowly. He closes his eyes for a moment, and in that second, I lower my head and wrap my lips around the head of his cock. “Scarlett…” he moans. No, he won’t last long. But I don’t really need him to. “I’ve wanted you for so long,” he whispers while pushing my hair back, and when I look up at him, he’s completely fixated on me pleasuring him in this way.  
        I run my tongue up the length of him, and another quivering breath escapes him. “You like this?” I ask, and he nods.  
        “Yes.” But he stops me soon after. “Come here,” he says while grabbing my hands to pull me up and into him. The two of us, naked and on our knees, pressed against each other makes me feel closer to him than I ever thought possible. And now I see him in a different light. Not just a friend and companion, but a lover. One who’s tender, careful, and one I know for certain loves me unconditionally. One I trust more than anyone.  
        He smiles through the kiss, and the two of us share a laugh in between the sweet gesture. And the way he kisses me, the way he touches my face, smiles in between kisses, presses his forehead into mine—it’s unlike anything Gage and I ever shared. Gage is an incredible lover, without a doubt. But the two of us always became feral with one another—our animalistic sides taking over, dominating is in a way that made it nearly impossible to be sweet or romantic in bed. Because we always just wanted to fuck each other, reach the end goal of making each other come.  
        But it isn’t that way with Macready, just like it wasn’t that way with Nate. It’s an intimate moment, one that’s to be valued and treasured. There’s no race to the finish line, no aggression or vulgarity. Just love and appreciation. A truly bonding experience between the two of us, and I feel warmer toward him than ever before.  
        He lowers me onto the bed and moves in between my legs again, and just the feeling of the head of his cock pressing against me makes my face get hot. But Macready is patient and slowly works his way inside of me. And the tenderness in him, it never fades away. He cradles my head while doing this to me, his lips hovering over mine while moving in and out of me, panting heavily onto me with each advance.  
        “You feel…so amazing,” he pants against me, and his skin becomes hot against me. And to be honest, he does too. Really amazing, the length and girth of him being different than Gage, reaching parts of me I haven’t felt in centuries. Or maybe it’s his insistence to take each and every advance slowly, enjoying every second of being so close to me. “Scarlett, I love you,” he quivers against my lips.  
        I throw my head back and moan at the feeling of him reaching so deep inside of me. I close my eyes, and my mind drifts to Gage again. A bad thing, something I need to get a handle on. I open my eyes, forcing myself back into the moment. “Oh, yeah…just like that,” I moan when he grinds his pelvic bone against me.  
        “Shush,” he whispers through a slight laugh. “The boys are sleeping. We don’t have a lock on the door.” I can’t help but snicker, covering my face in the embarrassment from the awkward situation we might find ourselves in. But I enjoy this moment. Because it’s something I never thought I’d get to have again. A bit of normalcy, I guess. Two parents trying to keep their cries of ecstasy at bay while their children sleep in the room next to them.  
        He stops moving for a moment and kisses me deeply, passionately. In every way I assume he’s ever wanted to kiss me. I wrap my arms around his neck to pull him further into me, but he breaks inches away. “Come here,” he says, and then pulls me upward.  
        He leans back on his knees, and now I’m straddling him, riding him while one of his hands cup my ass and the other holds the back of my head. And I feel safer in this moment than I have in a long time. And that sensation in between my legs, it starts growing, becoming more desperate for release with every move I make on top of him.  
        I hold him tight while riding him, and God, I never want this feeling to end. The feeling right before an orgasm, and I can’t help but start moaning louder. “Oh…oh, Macready…” I moan, and this time, he doesn’t try and silence me. Our skin sticks together from our sweat, and our hearts pound into each other’s chest. And as I near my orgasm, Macready starts assisting me in my movements on top of him, squeezing my ass and lifting me further onto him, thrusting his hips upward as he does.  
        “Tell me when you’re coming,” he whispers against my lips, his breath shaking. And he says this so quietly that if his lips weren’t against mine, I might not be able to make out what he said at all. And it doesn’t take long for me after he says this.  
        My body tenses around him, my face is red hot, and an explosion of pleasure surges throughout my body. “Now,” I moan. “I’m coming now…oh, God…”  
        “Don’t stop,” he says while thrusting up into me harder, his eyes fixated on my face the entire time. “You’re so beautiful, Scarlett.”  
        But I force my lips onto his to silence my moans and screams of sheer pleasure that he causing me, and Macready takes it from me willingly. But he breaks away from my kiss only seconds later, even though I know he really doesn’t want to. “You okay?” I ask through my heavy breaths, and even though this position is overstimulating, I know he’s close, and I don’t want to change a thing.  
        “I’m…I’m getting close, baby,” he moans. “Where should I…?”  
        “Come inside me,” I beg while pressing my forehead against his, and his breath catches in his throat at my request. I’m almost too ashamed to look at him, but I have to. Because he hasn’t responded. The look in his eyes, pure and utter confusion.  
        “What?” he finally asks through his heavy breaths, and I stop moving on top of him completely, fearful that I just crossed a line.  
        I bring my hand to the side of his face. “Please, Macready…I…I want to be a mother again. And you’re the only person I trust in the whole world.” He lets out a heavy breath and looks away from me, no doubt searching the furthest corners of his brain for something to say. But I bring my hand to his face again, forcing him to look up at me. “Please do this for me, and I’ll never ask you for anything again.”  
        He thinks for a moment, and the anticipation is killing me. But he doesn’t say anything. He only moves me on top of him again and begins his slow thrusts up into me, his breathing becoming heavier and heavier with each move until he leans his head onto my chest, the sweat from his hair dripping onto me. “Uh…uh…” he moans, and I hold him tighter, my arms shaking around him as he becomes more tense and methodical in his movements. And I’m curious as to how this will play out. But when he whispers “Oh…I’m coming…” his grip on me becoming tighter, I feel a weight being lifted off my shoulders. Because he’s given me exactly what I need.  
        He stops moving and just holds me on top of him for a while until his breathing slows, and just when I think he might start resenting me and the things I’ve asked him to do, he picks his head up and kisses me deeply.  
        I stay with him that night, and he holds me on his chest, running his fingers down my back lightly. “Thank you,” I say quietly.  
        “You don’t have to thank me,” he says. “I want to make you happy, Scarlett.” I pick my head up and look at him, so completely and utterly gracious for what he’s done—though he really has no idea what he’s really done. “Just…promise me you won’t leave me behind again. I don’t think…I don’t think I could handle losing you a second time.”  
        I feel the strong urge to cry for my lies and deceit. And when a tear escapes my eye, he wipes it away with his thumb. “I promise, I’m…I’m not going anywhere.”  
        And it’s a promise I intend to keep. Sure, I never saw myself with Macready before. But recent developments in my life have forced my hand on the matter. Gage can’t be a father. Macready already is one. And he loves me with all his heart, and I do love him. Not as much as I love Gage, but I figure that will come with time. Once he’s the father of my baby. Because all of this is for my baby. An innocent child deserving of a loving home and family, and I’m certain Macready will be the perfect man for the job.  
        I just wish I didn’t have to lie to him.  
        I stay in bed later the next morning than I’d like, and Macready sneaks out to tend to the boys. I guess our boys now. But the weight of what I’ve done comes crashing down around me.   The night before, I felt relief that I might be able to pull of this child being Macready’s. But now, I just feel guilty. And I’m terrified the day will come when he finds out the truth about what I’ve done.  
        “Good morning, sleepy head,” Macready says as I enter the dining area.  
        I smile weakly at him. “Where are Shaun and Duncan?”  
        “You just missed them. They went out to play with Dogmeat.” It warms my heart.  
        I sigh and sit at the table. “I wanted to meet Duncan. Officially,” I follow up because our encounter the previous night left something to be desired.  
        Macready smirks. “Don’t worry, you will.” The two of us are quiet for a while. “You hungry?” he asks.  
        “Starving.”  
        He smirks and turns to reach into a cooler on the counter behind him. “They’re, uh…cooking up some Brahmin out in the pit right now, but this should hold you over until then,” he says while bringing me a mutfruit, and I’m reminded of the day in Bradburton with Gage. Suddenly, I no longer want to eat. “Hey,” Macready says, and I look up at him. But his gentle lips against mine soothe me in a way I never expected he’d have the ability to do so soon after our exchange. “So, I’m on guard duty tonight,” he says.  
        “Uh oh,” I mutter while peeling my mutfruit. “Looks like it’s just me and the boys.”  
        He shrugs. “Well, I was thinking you could join me instead of Sturges. It’d be fun to be on guard duty with you again. It’s been too long.”  
        Ugh, guard duty. But I do miss our late night conversations. “And whose gonna stay with the boys?”  
        “Codsworth,” he says matter-of-factly, and I can’t help but feel guilty. Simply because Macready’s been looking after Shaun and Duncan on his own for a while now, and I assume he’s had to rely on Codsworth more than once to babysit while he mans the guard post. All because I wasn’t here, and there’s no way the best shot in Sanctuary Hills would ever abandon his post.  
        “Yeah, okay. That sounds fun.”  
        He seems skeptical. “Is everything all right?” he asks, and I consider. No, everything’s not all right. I’m heartbroken, feeling guilty for the lies I’ve told Macready. Feeling guilty for sleeping with another man when my heart still belongs to Gage despite the fact that I wish he’d just give it back to me. And I’m pregnant and worried that secret might be revealed sooner than I want.  
        But while attempting cling to a bit of foresight, I realize that there’s really no other way. And if I want my baby to grow up and be a good person, a contributing member of the Commonwealth, then I really have no other choice. The baby deserves a loving, stable home. And now, while sitting in the kitchen with Macready, I can only look at him in admiration, hoping that if I do have a son, he’ll be just like him. “Everything’s fine,” I say through a smile. Because it has to be. It’s tough now. And mostly I just want to break down and cry. But it’ll all be worth it in the end. Because now, every I choice I make is for my baby. And nothing is going to screw it up this time.  
        The door to our home bursts open and Preston enters looking bewildered and a bit fearful. “General, we have a situation,” he says, and I groan. Macready chuckles and turns away from us.  
        “Come on, Garvey,” he says over his shoulder. “She just got home. Maybe give her a day or two to get back in the swing of things?”  
        “It’s urgent,” Preston says, and I sigh while looking up at him.  
        “What could possibly be so urgent that you and the other Minutemen can’t handle it on your own?” I ask, and his eyes dart back and forth between Macready and I.  
        “Raiders.”  
        I feel as though my heart stops beating. Because I don’t think I’ll ever overcome the trauma that comes with that word. Ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. The holidays kind of snuck up on me. I have a few things to say here. One, I'm fully aware that I'm misspelling Macready's name. But I actually prefer this spelling. It's easier to type and it doesn't look as "cluttered?" I'm really not sure of the word to use, but...whatever. We all know who he is.
> 
> Now for my closing thoughts:
> 
> Surely, I can't be the only one to feel the way I did at the end of Nuka-World. From the moment I saw Porter Gage, I was like "I have to romance this guy. He's a raider, so that's cool. And he's hot. And I love his voice, AND he's great in combat." And after spending so much time with that character and learning about all the things he'd been through, I started to feel sorry for him. And for the first time since being a fan of the Fallout franchise, I started looking at raiders in a different light. I LOVED this guy, and I wanted to drag his sexy ass all over the Commonwealth with me forever.
> 
> Until he set his sights on the Commonwealth. I can't really speak for anyone else, but my main game, the one with my highest ranking character just happens to be the General of the Minutemen, and this is the very profile I used while playing Nuka-World. A years progress on building up settlements and doing the right thing, it all came crashing down around me when my sexy new companion told me to basically screw all that up for him. And I actually freaking did it, the bastard. (I ended up going back to an old save and then using my character from the Institute to do his evil bidding.) But I can't be alone in thinking that when Porter Gage said it was time to move into the Commonwealth (it being the first time to mention it) I felt betrayed by him. Manipulated and used as a pawn in his sick little game. I even decked him a few times in the face.
> 
> Now, I love Porter Gage, and I always will. I think he's one of the best companions in Fallout next to Charon, and had I not spent so much time as the General of the Minutemen, I might not have felt so irritated by his request. But it gave me the idea for this story. I guess as a way to express my annoyance with him because the game doesn't allow you to do that. Anyway, I'd love to hear how you all feel about this. And if you can't tell, the ending is left open for the possibility of a continuation, if I feel enough people would want that sort of thing.


End file.
